Mogomotsi Mogodiri
Pretoria - The cacophony about cadre deployment and its constitutionality is a mirage aimed at fomenting confusion and division while entrenching the subjugation and colonisation of South African natives.
This subterfuge is an integral part of an orchestrated push to demonise and delegitimise a policy that has, as its primary aim, ensuring that the transition from a shameful past of violent land dispossession and other crimes to a decolonised future of land repossession and economic justice is undertaken successfully.
The cadre deployment policy is a tool that ensures that the governing party wields its political power in pursuance of its electoral mandate.
The ANC, like other governing parties across the globe, does this through, among others, appointing the most experienced, skilled, competent and knowledgeable among its ranks to strategic centres of power in order to drive and facilitate the realisation of the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR).
Its main content is the liberation of blacks in general, and Africans in particular.
To do justice to this contentious conversation, there is a need to start from the beginning, and that is reminding ourselves what the ANC defines as cadre deployment.
Cadre deployment is a tool to “enable the ANC to take control of the state machinery and introduce new political, economic and social relations”.
According to the 1996 ANC document, “Is the NDR still on Track?”, “it (transformation) will be a long process, but the motive forces should have both the capacity and the intention to begin implementing fundamental change in all areas”.
The document also states that “one aspect of this is the balanced deployment of cadres for effective intervention on all fronts, including the governmental, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, with proper co-ordination amongst all these levels, to ensure that we act as one movement, united around a common policy and bound by a common programme of action”.
In addition, the Commission on Cadre Policy, Political and Ideological Work at the ANC Kabwe Conference in 1985, noted that “the Cadre Policy of an organisation is determined by the tasks which are short and long-term in the revolution”.
With an eye on taking over the government in our country, the ANC outlined six areas of power that defined the programme of the NDR. It also identified five pillars as immediate tasks to achieve the objectives of the NDR.
These centres of power relate to the following tasks:
* Building and strengthening the ANC as a movement that organises and leads the people in the task of social transformation.
* Deepening democracy and the culture of human rights and mobilising the people to take an active part in changing their lives for the better.
* Strengthening the hold of the democratic government on state power and transforming the state machinery to serve the cause of social change.
* Pursuing economic growth, development and redistribution in such a way as to improve the people’s quality of life.
* Working with progressive forces throughout the world to promote and defend our transformation, advance Africa’s renaissance and build a new world order.
There is a greater need to read the cadre deployment policy in conjunction with the “Through the Eye of the Needle” document so as to avoid having a false debate, instead of making a rational and sober analysis of its impact.
In the last instalment of the Zondo Commission report, it is claimed that the ANC deployment policy is “unconstitutional and illegal”.
Bizarrely but unsurprisingly, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo is joined by his cheerleaders in his misdirection and overreach. It is trite that the ANC cadre deployment policy was never on trial. Throughout the proceedings of the Zondo Commission, no evidence of the ANC deployment policy was led.
How did the Commission arrive at this outlandish finding, for what purpose and to what end?
This constitutes a figment of a fertile imagination on the one hand, and judicial overreach and irrationality on the other.
Therefore, no one can be faulted to assume that Chief Justice Zondo is doing the bidding of certain interests, a worrying development indeed.
If it is presumed that that policy is unconstitutional and illegal, it is only proper that a court application should be filed rather than be subjected to whims and a kangaroo court-type process. We await the proceedings of the DA application with much anticipation.
In any event, it would be mind-boggling for the said policy to be declared unconstitutional as there exist no rational and legal grounds to do so.
Generally, deploying your trusted, knowledgeable, capable and experienced cadres to implement policies of an elected political party is an acceptable practice, and an unwritten rule globally.
Why the hullabaloo from even the racist and hypocritical DA that practises the same policy, albeit in a different name and guise where it governs?
While the duplicity is infuriating, it is unsurprising as the DA is desperate to score cheap political points while entrenching whiteness. It is common cause that the DA and its ilk oppose transformative legislation, including employment equity, affirmative action and BBBEE, the aim being to preserve and entrench the colonial status quo.
It is also fallacious to suggest that the ANC cadre deployment policy fails the legality test (Public Service Act) as it expressly emphasises competence, skills, experience and qualifications while recognising prior learning.
In any event, which political party worth its salt can deploy the worst from among its ranks and hope to retain political power?
In the unlikely event that the court finds the policy “unconstitutional”, that would be a travesty of justice and contrary to the transformation ethos of our country’s less-than-perfect Constitution.
In its preamble, the Constitution commits to “heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights”.
This is an affirmation and commitment to correcting the wrongs of our shameful, colonial past. Without expressly stating it, the Constitution recognises that efforts need to be taken to restore the dignity of the natives, and some people have to undertake or lead that task.
It is ludicrous to expect those who are opposed to decolonisation while benefiting from apartheid colonialism to lead efforts that genuinely change that inhuman system. It is outrageous, if not irrational, to then suggest that deploying people who are knowledgeable in the governing party’s policies and are competent and skilled is unconstitutional and illegal.
Clearly, it is mischievous, if not blatantly racist, to suggest that the ANC cadre deployment policy promotes, advances and rewards mediocrity. Therefore, a proper distinction should be made between the policy per se and its implementation.
It is, therefore, an injustice for the Zondo Commission to have failed to make a clear distinction between the policy and its wrong implementation.
Indeed, there have been missteps and blunders, and the ANC should be the first to concede that things went wrong with the implementation of its deployment policy.
There were inadequate or no checks and balances, let alone consequence management in cases of abuse or manipulation and other malfeasances.
The need for mechanisms to be put in place to monitor, evaluate and refine the cadre deployment approach cannot be overemphasised.
The mooted review of the policy is a welcome development and should adequately address these gaps and ensure that there are no unintended consequences in the future.
To persist with the well-orchestrated, irrational narrative would be a signal that the elites’ inexplicable kicking to touch on the urgent need for the review, if not overhaul ,of our country’s Constitution cannot be left unattended.
We will have to review and amend the Constitution and/or subject the current one to a referendum.
The referendum will, for the first time since the adoption of this Constitution, afford citizens the opportunity to adequately express their views on its contents.
Its outcomes will be a true reflection of our needs and aspirations, instead of elites deciding what is good for us.
The propensity to pander to misguided populism and delusions of grandeur that aim to weaken or liquidating efforts to build a developmental state should end.
The pretence of having “the best constitution in the world” is also a farce that South Africans need to disabuse themselves of. We must also end the judicial monarchy in our country if genuine decolonisation is to take place.
Pretoria News