ANC dismisses DA bill on cadre deployment as hypocritical
Cape Town - The provincial ANC has dismissed as hypocritical the DA’s end cadre deployment bill presented to the National Assembly committee on public service and administration.
Presenting the bill on Wednesday, DA public service and administration spokesperson Leon Schreiber said the bill, formally called the Public Administration Laws General Amendment Bill (Palgab), was meant to empower the Public Service Commission to enforce merit-based appointments.
“The bill is designed to rebuild the separation between party and state that has been systematically destroyed through cadre deployment, by making it illegal for politicians to work in the civil service,” he said.
Schreiber said South Africa had a historic opportunity to end cadre deployment once and for all and that the DA was looking forward to a parliamentary vote on the bill, for which he urged cross-party support.
Ahead of the bill’s presentation to the parliamentary committee, provincial leader of the opposition Cameron Dugmore (ANC) said the DA bill was cheap politicking and that the provincial ANC would monitor the process and participate in the public hearings.
Dugmore said the DA practised cadre deployment wherever it governed. He said earlier this year he had exposed the DA’s deployment practices in the George municipality.
In January Dugmore produced an official letter from the DA Western Cape to the DA George caucus in which the party leadership instructed the municipality not to appoint a director of corporate services as all appointments needed to be approved by the DA federal executive.
He said following this incident he had written to the DA and even submitted a PAIA application requesting all minutes and letters sent to municipalities since 2009, but that this had been ignored by the DA.
Speaking after the presentation of the bill in Parliament, committee chairperson Tyotyo Hubert James (ANC) said the committee would discuss the bill at a future date.
Public Service and Administration Deputy Minister Chana Pilane-Majake, who was in the session, noted the private member’s bill and said she would leave deliberations to the committee.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za