Cadre Deployment; Bend Over ’cause We Hire.

Broach the cadre deployment topic even with acquaintances, I’ve found, and expect either an anticlimactic ‘agreeing to disagree’ or to simply lose a friend. Best not to go there. Also, it tends to come with a pervasive affinity to the ‘winner-takes-all’ mentality, which holds that by virtue of clinching a majority vote, the ANC enjoys the pleasure of hiring and firing at a whim. Spoils of the ballot, if you will. Add to this the casual perception that, regardless of qualifications, if you prove yourself a malleable sycophant within the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM), you’ll soon drive the Beamer and own the mansion.

However, an elementary reference to the constitution suggests that all this may fly in the face of the nation’s foremost document. One of its founding tenets on Section 3(2) instructs that; “All citizens are equally entitled to the rights, privileges and benefits of citizenship.” Section 195(1) further calls that: “Good human-resource management and career-development practices, to maximise human potential, must be cultivated.” It goes on; “employment and personnel management practices based on ability, objectivity, fairness” and states that these principles apply “in every sphere of government.”

Seems cut and dry at this point, but there is a snag. In the same breath this section states that “the appointment in public administration of a number of persons on policy considerations is not precluded, but national legislation must regulate these appointments in the public service.” Sounds like an endorsement of cadre deployment, but to a point.

The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) recent successful court bid to have the African National Congress (ANC) handover its deployment committee minutes to the official opposition has brought us full circle on this hotly-contested topic. Turns out we’d not given it due credit as a potentially potent electioneering tool. Also, we’ve seemingly neglected to analyse deeply enough the evolution of our post-democratic society in general and that of the previously marginalised Blacks in particular.

But more on that later.

On a SAfm interview recently, one wasn’t sure whether the academic Andile Swana was in want of a better term or was simply playing for shock value when he deadpan equated cadre deployment to a form of apartheid. Invariably, critics of the practice (cadre deployment) were prompt to give him a pat on the back whilst its advocates likely determined that this ‘clever black’ was pushing it.

One simply cannot hope to counter embedded redress policies of the MDM without suffering degrading labels, especially when you’re Black and seemingly should know better. You know, apartheid and all. Popular logic has it that Whites – by virtue of often being overlooked in appointment to key positions in the public service or in state tender-bidding would ostensibly regard the practice with acrimony. As a result, white opposition to cadre deployment is then fobbed off as less a legitimate rankle than a matter of envy or apartheid nostalgia – the mounting evidence indicating that the practice has become an axiom for graft and ineptitude notwithstanding.

As the Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie says of ‘tenders’: they “didn’t start with democracy [but with apartheid] now when Black people start to benefit from tenders now we’ve got to hear about a word like ‘tenderpreneur.'” A few other experts harbour a similar take. In an article on Daily Maverick paraphrasing a Dr Seleen Naidoo, Stephen Grootes writes; “[Dr Naidoo] suggests that governing parties in every country around the world have the right to practise cadre deployment.

“There are many examples in which ANC ministers appointed non-ANC members to important positions, including André de Ruyter being appointed as CEO of Eskom and three DA members being named as ambassadors.”

Swana’s pronouncement, however, is so profound it simply can’t be left unchecked.

It raises salient questions in as far as who the real beneficiaries of cadre deployment might be. Are they the previously marginalised Blacks across the board, or – as detractors are quick to point out – the previously marginalised Blacks who happen to have strong ANC ties? Of course if the answer is the latter, one can deduce there’s more than enough grounds for the unconstitutionality argument.

Swana goes on to say that in the minutes of the cadre deployment committee from 3 December 2018 and 17 May 2021 “under the presidency of Ramaphosa as well as under the chairmanship of DD Mabuza that 96 different government departments, agencies and boards of state-owned companies were impacted by cadre deployment … whereby ANC loyalists were being installed in those institutions regardless of technical merit or any form of competency and any form of probity in terms of honesty and trustworthiness which are required by both the PFMA and the Municipal Finance Management Act.”

By his estimate cadre deployment has:

1) “Made sure many black people have been subjected to apartheid by the ANC, in the sense that there is job reservation against the existing constitution in favour of those who are known to be loyal members of the ANC. So this has not just affected White or any other type of South Africans but Black South Africans who are not known to be loyal to the ANC have been excluded from jobs that they are fully qualified to do.”

Secondly, “is that the performance of the state institutions across the board have deteriorated to the point of … uncontrolled sewerage, cholera, loadshedding … the country is at an accelerated deterioration because of non-performance by these incompetent people. So the economy of South Africa has been losing a huge percentage, more than 5% a year through cadre deployment because Transnet is not working, the ports are not working properly.”

Statistical evidence suggests significant improvements for the previously disadvantaged particularly in education. There are more Black graduates and post-graduates in SA today than any time in history. It would then be fair enough to say that there is no shortage of able and qualified Black professionals to choose from in heading critical state institutions whilst simultaneously meeting redress goals. And yet it would seem that this is exactly the sort of Black that the ANC generally finds unpalatable.

The high court case, Mlokoti v Amathole District Municipality, is considered a landmark ruling and is instructive. Mlokoti, who had applied for a vacant municipal manager position and was the best candidate wound up being passed-over on the basis that the ANC’s cadre deployment committee did not want the position filled by a member of the PAC. The courts would ultimately nullify the committee’s decision and replace the deployed cadre with Mlokoti. There are myriad disastrous examples. Hlaudi Motsoeneng heading the public broadcaster; Dudu Myeni, a former pre-primary school teacher chairing the national carrier, SAA.

If these were aberrations rather than standard practice, our SOEs might be faring far better off. Sadly, because cadre deployment has been allowed free reign it has come to assume some hallowed, untouchable status in the civil service. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is par for the course across all spheres of government. Swana has a word for this: impunity.

He notes – as an example of the roughshod demeanour – how across the county’s various municipalities, court orders against these entities simply go ignored,demonstrating the lack of accountability in governance. In a strange twist, just as the DA was pointing an accusing finger at the ANC, turns out it might also be guilty of the same offence; deploying its own in the areas where it governs. At this, Swana is harshly pious; just because someone rapes and murders doesn’t mean you should murder and rape also.

Be that as it may, President Ramaphosa appearing before the state capture commission once declared; “the practice of cadre deployment should not be inconsistent with the principles of fairness, transparency and merit in the appointment of individuals to public entities … But we would concede that there are weaknesses in its practical implementation that make the case for greater clarity, both within political parties and the state.”

Try telling that to the unemployed youngster desperate for a job – any job – but is bypassed simply because of his political (non) affiliation. Or the woman who must first assume the face-down-posterior-up position for a job simply because an unregulated cadre deployment setup gives even the boneheaded hack so much power.

A few months ago Kuyasa Township was ablaze precisely because of the former issue. Many in the community felt that the powers that be had overstepped the sacred line separating ‘party’ and ‘state.’ They wondered what on earth wielding a spade or waving a red flag all day had to do with what party you were in. Here at eParkeni we’ve expressed on several articles our sentiments towards the DA’s ‘boys club’ ways. But on this one, because it is congruent with morality, religion and even the poets, we can’t help but cross fingers that the notion of fairness and constitutionalism will prevail. And, that the DA will also remember what they say about throwing stones and glass houses.