The DA will launch a contempt of court application against the ANC after its failure to submit full and unredacted records of its cadre deployment documents.

At the same time, pressure continues to mount on the DA to release records of its own cadre deployment after DA federal council chairperson Helen Zille blamed former leader Mmusi Maimane for apparently introducing the practice.

TimesLIVE reports that the DA said it will appeal the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) decision to dismiss its application to have the ANC's cadre deployment policy declared unlawful and unconstitutional.

DA leader John Steenhuisen said the ANC has failed to comply with the recent Constitutional Court order that it must submit full records of the meetings and decisions of its cadre deployment committee from 2013 to 2021.

‘The ANC failed to include (President Cyril) Ramaphosa’s own e-mails and WhatsApp messages in the material it handed over to the DA, despite that Ramaphosa was chair of this committee during this period and was one of the recipients of the e-mails and WhatsApp messages in question. He ultimately bears responsibility for its operations but fails to depose to an affidavit confirming he has no documents or information for this period.’

The ANC has blamed its inability to make full disclosure of the records required on a computer that mysteriously crashed. The party contends the same employee whose computer crashed also mistakenly deleted some of the records when he tried to free space in his e-mail account.

The DA issued a letter of demand to the ANC for it to fully comply with the Constitutional Court order.

The deadline was set for Saturday, citing that should the party fail to do so, it will seek an urgent contempt of court ruling that includes prison time aimed specifically at its secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, who acted on behalf of the ruling party in the matter.

‘We will use the precedent created in the (former President) Jacob Zuma case when he was sent to prison for similarly being in contempt of a Constitutional Court order. We will also pursue criminal charges against ANC officials involved in the destruction of information as part of a blatant cover-up campaign to try to wipe Ramaphosa’s fingerprints off the cadre deployment records.’

The DA said it pointed out in its letter that the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) request ‘is not limited to minutes of committee meetings but extends to all information on the processes and decisions of the committee during the period 2013-2021’.

The DA slammed the proposition that the ANC has no documentary or digital trace at all of any communications on the committee's processes during this five-year period, saying the claim was not credible.

The party will also lay criminal charges against ANC official Thapelo Masilela, who admitted in a sworn statement that he ‘mistakenly’ destroyed some records the DA sought under the PAIA, reports TimesLIVE.

Full TimesLIVE report