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If there is one political party that is proving to be even more corrupt in its practice of cadre deployment than the African National Congress (ANC), it is the Patriotic Alliance (PA). While the ANC may have coined cadre deployment, the PA is perfecting this devastating form of corruption.
The latest evidence comes from Beaufort West Municipality, where Mr. Derick Welgemoed, a former DA councillor, was recently appointed Acting Municipal Manager only days after crossing the floor to the PA. It can safely be concluded that he was lured to the PA with the corrupt promise that Gayton McKenzie’s party would irregularly appoint him to the highly paid position of Municipal Manager without following any due process.
The Municipal Manager is the most senior administrative official in a municipality and should be appointed purely on the basis of merit with no political interference.
This, clearly, is not what happened in Beaufort West. The DA will consequently refer the matter to the MEC for local government in the Western Cape for urgent investigation.
After being advertised, interviews for the vacant position of Municipal Manager that had been scheduled for Wednesday, 12 April 2023, were hastily cancelled right before Welgemoed crossed the floor to the PA.
At a council meeting on Friday, 14 April 2023, Welgemoed’s CV was circulated among council members, after which his appointment was approved without any due process.
The DA in Beaufort West did not support his appointment and the questions we raised on the sudden postponement of the interview process were left unanswered.
Ironically, as DA councillor, Mr Welgemoed brought allegations of corruption against the ANC and PA in council, whom he now serves as a loyal cadre in exchange for a highly paid position he is unqualified for.
As is always with the case with the cadre deployment corruption that the PA has copied from the ANC, it is the people of Beaufort West that will suffer. The appointment to administrative positions of people on the basis of politics, like Welgemoed, leads to corruption, mismanagement and service delivery collapse.
While the PA has openly embraced the ANC and its corrupt cadre deployment tactics, the DA is leading the fight against this corruption. We are currently awaiting the outcomes of our court challenge to declare cadre deployment unconstitutional. The urgency of a DA victory in that case is confirmed by the fact that the cancer of cadre deployment is no longer limited to the ANC, but has been embraced by its corrupt proxies in the PA.