Gigaba woes continue as he heads for state-capture inquiry

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has suffered another defeat in his legal battle with the Oppenheimers after the Constitutional Court denied him leave to appeal against a judgment that found he had lied under oath.

Gigaba is set to appear before the public enterprises committee’s inquiry into the capture of state-owned entities, including Eskom, on Tuesday to account for decisions he made as public enterprises minister.

Oppenheimer aviation company Fireblade took Gigaba to court in 2016 after he rejected its application to operate a luxury international terminal at OR Tambo International Airport.

The Oppenheimers accused Gigaba of reversing his approval after pressure from the Guptas. He is now expected to be grilled by MPs about allegations that he had packed the boards of parastatals with Gupta people, allegedly paving the way for the capture of the entities.

The Gupta brothers will not attend Tuesday’s grilling as they are said to be out of the country nor will former South African Airways chairwoman Dudu Myeni, said to be unwell. In October, the Pretoria High Court ruled Gigaba approved the Fireblade application at a meeting with Nicky Oppenheimer and Fireblade and Home Affairs officials in January 2016 and should not be allowed to change his mind without good reason.

Gigaba said he had rejected the proposal because it would be beyond his powers to designate a port of entry for exclusive private use. But Judge Sulet Potterill ruled he was not being asked to declare a new port of entry. The judge ordered the Department of Home Affairs to start providing customs and immigration services at the Fireblade terminal.

Gigaba denied he had approved the plan at the January meeting, even though Fireblade’s minutes were not disputed after they were sent to his office and Gigaba even suggested former president Jacob Zuma be invited to the terminal’s opening ceremony.

In her December 8 judgment, Potterill described his arguments as “disingenuous, spurious and fundamentally flawed, laboured and meritless, astonishing, palpably untrue, untenable and not sustained by objective evidence and nonsensical”.

The appeal was heard by Judge Neil Tuchten, who declared Gigaba had “deliberately told untruths under oath”.

This prompted home affairs to apply to the Constitutional Court, which ruled last week that the application “should be dismissed with costs”.