Democratic Alliance (DA) Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration Dr Leon Schreiber said on Friday the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) latest application for leave to appeal confirms that the party is “terrified” of the implications of revealing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s personal complicity in cadre deployment corruption.

The DA said it received notice from the ANC that it has applied for leave to appeal a ruling handed down on April 3 by the Johannesburg High Court, which found the ANC and its secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, guilty of civil contempt of court for unlawfully withholding records of its national cadre deployment committee in violation of an earlier order, which was upheld by the Constitutional Court, that all such records must be handed over to the DA.

The ANC had until April 24 to comply or to file an application to appeal.

Schreiber said that should the ANC continue to hold the court in contempt after its latest “doomed” appeal fails, the DA will further escalate its “war against cadre deployment” by applying to send Mbalula and other ANC officials to prison for criminal contempt of court.

He called the ANC’s appeal “desperate Stalingrad tactics” that seek to delay justice in the matter.

He pointed out that no fewer than four different courts have now ruled against the ANC’s attempts to ”hide its dirty cadre deployment secrets”.

“It is clear that the ANC’s latest delaying tactic is doomed to fail like all that have come before. The simple reality of this case is that the Constitutional Court upheld an order that the ANC must hand over ‘all’ records related to its national cadre deployment committee dating back to 1 January 2013, when Ramaphosa became cadre deployment committee chairman. Unless the ANC claims to be so illiterate as to not understand the meaning of the word ‘all’, it is clear that the party knows that it is only a matter of time until the DA exposes Cyril Ramaphosa’s fingerprints all over the cadre deployment project to capture and collapse the South African state,” Schreiber said.

Schreiber stated that the ANC “needs to understand” that the DA won’t relent on the matter, describing it as foundational to the party’s mission to rescue South Africa.