Ramaphosa reveals under oath that the ANC also applies cadre deployment in the private sector

24 August 2022

Please find attached a soundbite by Dr Leon Schreiber MP.

In response to the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) ongoing court action to abolish ANC cadre deployment corruption, President Cyril Ramaphosa has made the shocking revelation that his party’s cadre deployment policy is not limited to capturing all levers of power in the state and public sector.

For the very first time, Ramaphosa has confirmed under oath in his answering affidavit to the DA that “the cadre deployment policy applies to…leadership in critical institutions including the private sector.”

The implications of this revelation are enormous.

It suggests that the term “state capture” may be insufficient in describing the consequences of ANC cadre deployment. The President of the ANC and of our country has now confirmed that this policy is used to capture both the public and private sectors to serve the aims of his party. The term “country capture” may thus be more appropriate than “state capture” to describe how the ANC has corrupted both the public and private spheres in our society.

Ramaphosa’s revelation opens up a whole new front in the DA’s war on cadre deployment. From the minutes of the ANC’s national cadre deployment committee, which the DA exposed earlier this year, it is clear that the committee interfered in appointments to at least 84 different government departments and public sector institutions. However, these minutes only cover a short period between 2018 and 2021, and do not provide the complete picture. That is why the DA, in a separate court action, will force the ANC to publish full and complete records of cadre deployment over the past decade so that we can see which private sector appointments were made at the behest of Ramaphosa’s deployment committee.

Ramaphosa’s shocking revelations suggest that the DA may have unearthed the first piece of evidence of the greatest racketeering stitch-up in the history of South Africa. For if, as Rampahosa states under oath, the ANC improperly abuses its position as governing party to influence senior appointments at private companies, this would enable the ANC to ensure that those loyal cadres abuse private companies to channel money, jobs, tenders and other favours back to the ANC.

The DA will now turn its full attention and resources towards unearthing further evidence of this possibly criminal racketeering operation, including an investigation into whether the policy of BEE – of which Ramaphosa is a chief beneficiary – is used as a cover for deploying ANC cadres to capture private sector institutions. As we have done throughout this campaign, we undertake to the people of South Africa that we will not rest until we have fully exposed the truth behind cadre deployment, and until we have abolished this evil and corrupt practice once and for all.

Issued by Leon Schreiber, DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration, 24 August 2022