DA tells Mbaks to follow court order or face jail

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has given ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula an ultimatum to hand over all necessary documents, e-mails and WhatsApp messages concerning the ANC’s cadre deployment meetings or go to prison.

DA leader John Steenhuisen said while the ANC had handed over documents as compelled by the Constitutional Court, there was missing information, which included correspondence with President Cyril Ramaphosa, head of the ANC cadre deployment committee in the state capture years.

Steenhuisen said the ANC had extensively redacted the documents despite not being entitled to do so by the court order. It had provided no information for a five-year period during which Ramaphosa was the cadre deployment committee chair and had failed to mention this in its court papers.

“They failed to provide a list of all decisions taken by the cadre deployment committee as ordered by the court, they impermissibly restricted communication disseminated during the year 2020 and they furnished illegible documents.”

He further claimed that the ANC had destroyed documents while the matter was pending before the court.

“They failed to adequately explain the steps taken to locate the information, including all information from President Ramaphosa himself as chairperson of the committee and thus recipient of any and all information and documents pertaining to it,” he added.

Steenhuisen alleged that the ANC had failed to provide minutes that were not formally adopted, even though the court order obliges the party to hand over all relevant information.

The DA’s lawyers had written to the ANC two days before the party launches its election manifesto this weekend, asking it to comply with the court order or face being in contempt of court.

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