LETTER: Practical questions about cadre deployment

In his testimony to the Zondo commission, President Cyril Ramaphosa painted a benign picture of the ANC’s cadre deployment policy. He indicated that the deployment committee’s decisions are just “recommendations” that do not override the legal prescripts governing appointments in the public service.

In fact, cadre deployment is pernicious and is diametrically at odds with the government’s policy of creating a professional public service. It is not only a matter of the national deployment committee. Provincial ANC deployment committees also hold sway over most senior management positions in provincial departments and municipalities in some ANC-controlled provinces.

It is important to separate some key issues. There is no debate that the ANC, as the democratically elected party governing SA, should choose which of its leaders should occupy political leadership positions in the government. The problem arises when the ANC decides who should occupy administrative leadership positions.

Since 1994, the ANC has been leading the putting in place of legislation to provide for a professional public service, in which appointments are made on the basis of merit, experience, qualifications and affirmative action. Public service and municipal regulations govern senior management appointments that prescribe the processes to be followed for such appointments and that make no room for decisions to be taken or influenced by ANC deployment committees.

Career limiting?

The president’s responses at the Zondo commission raise more questions than provide answers. What is the point of the deployment committee’s recommendations if they cannot override the prescribed administrative recruitment processes, and vice versa?

Are all the members of the interview committee (who are appointed in terms of the prescribed processes) informed of the deployment committee’s “recommendation” and expected to implement it? If so, what is the point of having the prescribed processes?

What happens if the result of the prescribed recruitment processes is different to the “recommendation” of the deployment committee? What view does the ANC take of officials and political leaders who do not implement the “recommendations” of the deployment committee? Is it career limiting for them?

Does all of this lead to a situation in which the prescribed recruitment processes become sham processes that are manipulated to result in outcomes that are predetermined by ANC deployment committees?

It is now 27 years since the ANC came to power. In that time, the public service has undergone major transformation, and it can no longer be realistically argued that there is a risk of its policies being undermined by officials inherited from the old order. The ANC needs to do some introspection and ask itself what purpose cadre deployment now serves at the administrative level. To achieve the aims of reducing unemployment, poverty and inequality and improving service delivery, surely the best available people should be appointed in senior management positions across municipal, provincial and national government, according to the existing recruitment prescripts, including affirmative action?

Gender balance

What are the reasons some in the ANC are putting forward to maintain cadre deployment at administrative level? Why should a provincial ANC deployment committee be deciding who should be appointed as head of the engineering department of a district municipality responsible for delivering water and sanitation services, for example? Is it because the provincial deployment committee is better equipped to choose the most suitable candidate, considering the relative merits of the engineering qualifications and experience of running water and wastewater treatment plants of the various candidates? Unlikely. Or is it because the deployment committee wants to choose a candidate who will comply with requests to steer procurement processes to benefit the ANC or individual ANC members, or both? Or that the deployment committee merely wishes to exercise its powers of patronage to allocate scarce well-paid jobs to loyal comrades?  

The president argued at the Zondo commission that the deployment committee is required to ensure gender or demographic balance in appointments. But requirements for gender and demographic balance are already included in the prescripts of governing recruitment — government bodies are required to have employment equity plans and to report against these. Why should formally legally prescribed recruitment processes be checked by a political committee with no legal standing?

The ANC is the first to admit that there are management weaknesses and a shortage of skills in provincial and local government. But will it be as quick to admit that its own cadre deployment practices are one of the causes of this?

Senior public servant

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