Oh, please Malusi, pull the other one

If only Malusi Gigaba was as efficient – or honest – in his various portfolios in government as he is at playing the victim, then perhaps we would have a modicum of respect for him. Yesterday, in tendering his Cabinet position resignation to President Cyril Ramaphosa – mere hours before the axe was probably due to fall on him today anyway – Gigaba again tried to play to the gallery and for sympathy.

He was stepping aside, Gigaba wrote to Ramaphosa “for the sake of our country” and the movement to which he belongs.

He also said he hoped “further to relieve the president from undue pressure and allow him to focus on improving the lives of the people of South Africa and for him to do the best he can to serve the country and save it from this economic meltdown”. The picture of innocence. It has apparently escaped Gigaba’s notice that his name has featured prominently in some of the more sordid corners of the state capture project, which is one of the major reasons South Africa is in what he calls “economic meltdown”.

Perhaps if Gigaba had spent less time jetting around the world, accompanied by his wife Nomachule, or spent less time in the company of the Gupta family, which is at the heart of the state capture network, then he might have been able to himself “focus on improving the lives of the people of South Africa”.

This man should not be banished into the political wilderness – and, indeed, it looks as though some of his henchmen and admirers in Polokwane, Limpopo, still want him for high office – but he should be forced to testify to the law enforcement authorities about exactly what he knows about state capture.

Now that would really be doing something “for the sake of our country”, Malusi.