ANC kills Parliament’s last chance to tackle cadre deployment

5 December 2023

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s repeated promises that his ANC government supposedly planned to build a “professional, ethical and capable public service” are officially dead in the water. This morning, the ANC in Parliament finally killed off any last remaining vestiges of this empty promise. It did so by unilaterally canceling a meeting of the portfolio committee on public service and administration that had been scheduled for tomorrow, which was meant to vote on the adoption of the Public Service Amendment (PSA) Bill.

The meeting cancellation follows after it was already postponed last week so that the ANC in Parliament could “consult further” on the bill that had been introduced by the ANC Cabinet. With the 2024 election as little as six months away, and with Parliament only returning in late February, the scrapping of tomorrow’s meeting makes it practically impossible to pass this Bill before the end of the parliamentary term.

The PSA Bill was originally introduced by the ANC Cabinet as a desperate measure to try and save face after the DA’s repeated court victories against cadre deployment and after we received near-unanimous opposition support for the End Cadre Deployment Bill earlier this year. Under sustained political pressure from the DA, the PSA Bill amounted to a watered-down version of the DA’s End Cadre Deployment Bill.

The PSA copy-pasted a provision from the DA’s Bill that would have made it illegal for people who hold office in political parties to be employed in the public service and it would also have implemented DA policy to remove powers of appointment into the public service from politicians. However, unlike the DA’s Bill, the PSA failed to address the urgent need for the Public Service Commission to obtain greater independence and enforcement powers to enforce merit-based appointments.

Even though the PSA Bill was clearly a face-saving exercise and amounted to a watered-down version of the DA’s original Bill, its adoption would still have been a small step in the right direction. But the ANC has now eliminated any prospect of even this watered-down reform to begin addressing the collapse of the state caused by ANC cadre deployment.

With this final act, the ANC has confirmed that the only way rescue South Africa from cadre deployment and state failure is for voters to register and vote for the DA in the 2024 election. The ANC has conclusively chosen cadre deployment and the corruption and state capture that flows from it, over Ramaphosa’s deceitful promises of a capable state.

In contrast, the DA is the only political party that has consistently led the fight against cadre deployment, which was declared unconstitutional by the State Capture Commission. In 2024, a vote for the DA is a vote against cadre deployment and to rescue service delivery before it is too late.

Issued by Leon Schreiber, DA Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration, 5 December 2023