Johnathan Paoli
The South Gauteng High court has ruled in favour of the DA’s urgent application to declare the ANC guilty of contempt of court over its failure to hand over complete cadre records.
In a ruling handed down on Wednesday in Johannesburg, the court found the ANC as well as its secretary-general Fikile April Mbalula, guilty of contempt of court.
The DA welcomed the judgement, with Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration Leon Schreiber saying that his party approached the court on an urgent basis following the ANC allegedly redacted, destroyed and withheld records of its cadre deployment committee dating back to 1 January 2013, when President Cyril Ramaphosa became its chairman.
“The ruling confirms beyond all doubt that the ANC is a lawless criminal syndicate that is prepared to trigger a constitutional crisis to hide the fact that its corrupt cadre deployment committee is the root cause of state capture, corruption and service delivery failure,” Schreiber said.
The court found that the ANC had “willfully” and with “mala fides” refused to comply with an order, upheld by the Constitutional Court, for it to hand over its cadre secrets.
The court specifically condemned the ruling party’s failure to disclose communications and records held by the President, with the court saying that there existed a particular obligation to disclose communication relating to the committee’s work by, and involving, Ramaphosa, who was the chairperson of the committee between 2013 and 2018.
Schreiber said in light of the ruling, his party called on Ramaphosa to act in accordance with his position as President in order to bring an end to this escalating constitutional crisis triggered by his party, and abiding by the ruling and hand over to the DA all of his personal emails, Whatsapps and other communication revealing the role he personally played in state capture through his position.
“As we have done throughout our years-long battle to expose and defeat ANC cadre deployment, the DA reserves our rights to pursue further action against the constitutional delinquents masquerading as a governing party,” Schreiber said.
The court ordered the ANC to pay the DA’s full costs for the application, as well as allocating 15 days in which to hand over all records, including Ramaphosa’s personal emails and Whatsapp communication from his time as chairman.
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