Pretoria - Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has until the end of this week to comply with a court order to hand over the complete records of her Covid-19 state of disaster decisions to Sakeliga, or face an application for contempt of court.
The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, in November ordered Dlamini Zuma to comply by December 22 with the information request that Sakeliga submitted to her in December 2020.
The request for information included a request for all records on which she relied when she declared the national state of disaster in March 2020, for each time that she extended it, and for each of the regulations she published during that time.
According to Sakeliga, the minister has failed to comply with the court order to hand over the complete records of her state of disaster decision.
In a letter from the organisation’s attorneys to Dlamini Zuma, it was pointed out to her that she had not complied with the court order and that Sakeliga deemed her to be in contempt of court.
“We caution her that if, by January 6, we have still not received from her the complete record, we will approach the court with an application to hold her in contempt of court,” said the organisation, a club of businesses, professionals and investors.
Although the court order stated that Dlamini Zuma should comply with Sakeliga’s complete information request, her legal team has so far provided an index listing 41 records, with apparently only some of the records in the index actually delivered.
However, neither the index nor the records delivered satisfy Sakeliga’s information request and the court order, the organisation said.
Its lawyers said in a letter to the minister that she had not provided the records which formed part of the court order.
“Your record consists mainly of already public policy documents and reports … One gets the impression that the Cogta minister has merely collected already prepared records from her litigation files to give lip service to the court order,” part of the lawyer’s letter stated.
Sakeliga said the court order required full compliance with the information requested.
This included the disclosure of all records, reasons, reports, findings, deliberations, communications, memoranda and documentation relied upon by the minister during the making of her lockdown regulations in 2020. The information request is also particular about the delivery of all records considered during the creation of each version of her augmented lockdown regulations during 2020.
Sakeliga questioned where the reports on public consultation, inter-departmental meetings, consultations with experts and industry, and the preparation of disaster management regulations which formed part of their request and subsequent court order are.
Sakeliga has been embroiled in legal proceedings with the minister for more than two years in a bid to lift the veil of secrecy over the government’s decision-making processes regarding disaster management regulations.
Sakeliga vowed that if it did not receive the full record, as ordered by the court, by the end of this week, it would once again meet the minister in court.
Pretoria News