The ANC complied with the Constitutional Court ruling and handed over cadre deployment records to the DA, accusing the opposition party of deliberate misrepresentation, threats and false expectations of what might be contained in the records.
DA spokesperson for public administration, Leon Schreiber, said the ANC had provided the documents by the 5pm deadline.
“The DA will now study the records to ascertain whether the ANC has complied with the court order in full, which directed it to hand over complete meeting minutes, email correspondence, WhatsApp conversations, CVs and all other relevant documentation dating back to January 2013,” Schreiber said.
ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri on Monday said the party had nothing to hide and that a number of the records for the period 2018 to 2021 were handed over to the Commission on State Capture from 2021, including testimony by President Cyril Ramaphosa and other national officials of the party.
The ANC lost its appeal in the Constitutional Court last week against an earlier court ruling to hand over all cadre deployment records to the official opposition relating to the cadre deployment committee stretching back to 2013, when Ramaphosa was the ANC deputy president.
The DA approached the courts using the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) to get the ANC to reveal how the deployment committee made appointments.
Bhengu-Motsiri said the party had already informed the Zondo Commission that it had “conducted a thorough search for minutes of the National Deployment Committee for the period December 2012 to December 2017”.
“No minutes of the meetings of the National Deployment Committee for the relevant period could be found,” she said.
In Ramaphosa’s testimony to the Zondo Commission, he committed that the ANC would do everything in its power to find the records, she said.
“The ANC has done so and will hand over all records that have been found, and give an explanation regarding those records which either do not exist, or which have not been able to be found.”
Bhengu-Motsiri said the party rejected the DA’s threats to lay charges of contempt of court against its leadership; it has followed all the requirements of the Paia in complying with the court order.
“Furthermore, precautions have been taken to comply with the provisions of the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia) to protect the personal information of those who have not given consent for its release.
“The ANC calls upon Dr Schreiber to respect the rights of these individuals and to use the records handed to him for the purpose outlined in his Paia application.
“It would be regrettable if Dr Schreiber misuses the noble provisions of our Constitution which guarantees citizens the right of access to information for narrow party-political advantage.”
Schreiber, who brought the Paia application on behalf of the DA, on Monday said if there is an attempt to hide critical information and not comply with the order of the Constitutional Court, the DA will go back to court.
“It is clear the ANC both in front of the Zondo Commission and throughout this court process has desperately sought to hide from the public President Ramaphosa’s involvement in state capture through guided deployment.
“That is why they are saying the records prior to 2018 don’t exist, because that’s the period when the president was chairman of the deployment committee.”
Political analyst Professor Ntsikelelo Breakfast said the DA will be particularly interested in the deployment committee during the period that it was chaired by Ramaphosa.
“At the Zondo Commission Ramaphosa said the records between 2013 and 2017 could not be found and it will be interesting to see where these records come from.
“If records are not found, the question is how does an organisation running the country not keep records of who was deployed?”
Breakfast said the ANC cannot say it has a right to privacy with regards to some of the documents.
“The party’s decisions have consequences ... their decisions have affected us all.”
The Mercury