Please find attached soundbite by Natasha Mazzone MP.
The DA has written to the acting speaker of the National Assembly, Lechesa Tsenoli, to request a debate of national importance on cadre deployment.
The ANC’s policy of cadre deployment has resulted in the near collapse of State. Instead of ensuring that the most capable individuals were appointed to crucial positions within the State, this policy to this day ensures that State organs are hollowed out, resulting in the grand scale looting and corruption that sees politically connected individuals like the Guptas and Digital Vibes-masterminds, Tahera Mather and Naadhira Mitha, living in stolen luxury while ordinary South Africans literally starve.
The truth is that while former President Jacob Zuma seems to have spearheaded the country’s capture, blame must also be laid at the feet of President Cyril Ramaphosa who was the chairperson of the ANC’s cadre deployment committee where he actively participated in deploying ANC cadres across government departments where they ultimately facilitated the Gupta-family’s looting of our State coffers, State-owned entities (SOEs) and government departments.
This policy by the ruling party has led to the wide-spread corruption that is rife within our government.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s previous testimony before the Zondo commission, as well as his testimony this week, has shown that he has no desire to be held accountable for consequences of this policy, his hand in its employment and how it has impacted our State resources.
In fact, when confronted with the evidence of State capture, the President said he only became aware of it through the media. Are we to belief that he was so out of touch with his own party back then that he did not see the rot? Or was it rather a case of putting the ANC above the country – the only thing apart from stealing from the poor that he and his cadres certainly seem to experts at.
Yesterday, the Zondo commission acceded to the DA’s request for the minutes of the cadre deployment committee to be made public. And while the records from between 2013 and 2018 – when President Ramaphosa was the chairperson – has somehow disappeared, the DA will not give up the fight in finding out his exact involvement in the facilitation of the country’s capture by deploying cadres that fully enabled the Guptas and other hyenas in stripping it bare. The sudden disappearance of the committee’s minutes alludes to damning evidence within.
Today, the DA submitted our End Cadre Deployment Bill with the Speaker’s Office in Parliament, which seeks to end the ANC’s cadre deployment committee’s power to appoint State officials on the basis of loyalty to the party rather than on the basis of merit.
Only by ending this destructive policy can South Africa ever hope to regain the economic momentum to lift all our citizens from poverty.