Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen has denied claims by former DA mayor in Midvaal Bongani Baloyi that the party practices cadre deployment.

Baloyi, who was DA mayor in Midvaal for almost 10 years, said the party cannot insulate itself from the cadre deployment policy.

This comes after the DA won its case in the Constitutional Court where the African National Congress (ANC) was forced to release the records of the cadre deployment committee when President Cyril Ramaphosa was chairing the committee.

Baloyi said it was true that the DA also practices this policy where it governs.

“It is true that the DA practices cadre deployment. When I was mayor of Midvaal between 2013 and 2021, the municipality couldn’t conclude a senior staff appointment without the approral of Fedex (Federal Executive).

“It was standard procedure that all mayors apply to get the approval of Fedex before the municipality would conclude the appointment. This practice hasn’t changed. If they have nothing to hide, they must release the minutes of Fedex and you will see that they practiced the same cadre deployment that the ANC practiced,” said Baloyi.

But Steenhuisen on Friday denied the allegations made by Baloyi.

He described him as a disgruntled former member who was making unfounded allegations.

He said the DA has never interfered in the appointment of senior officials in local government or any structure where it governs.

“On the allegation made by a former disgruntled member of the party. I will just simply say this,, since his announcement mayor (Chris) Pappas, former mayor (Athol) Trollip and a variety of other mayors in the party have come out and completely refute what he has said.

“The DA has never interfered and selected municipal managers or senior municipal managers in any municipality ever. There are no minutes that would record that because the deliberations and considerations did not take place. The sole thing that the mayors were required to produce was to indicate the process that was followed,” said Steenhuisen.

He added that the DA would never get involved in the selection and appointment of senior officials in municipalities.

They follow the prescripts of the law when appointments were made in local government or any other sphere of government.

“We have never asked for the political affiliations for municipal managers or any other senior staff in any municipality where we are at, Such would be a violation of the Public Service Act, but would also be a violation of the principles which we believe have underpinned our ability to produce a government that produces clean accountable governance across all government departments that spend money on the people and not politicians and which gets basic service delivery absolutely right,” said Steenhuisen.

He said it was not possible to interfere in the selection and appointment processes as they always follow the law.

They will not interfere in the administration of any municipality or level of government.

siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za

Politics