New dawn hinges on firing Gigaba

It’s not often The Citizen agrees with much of what the Economic Freedom Fighters says. But it hit the nail on the head by demanding that President Cyril Ramaphosa immediately fire Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba. How much worse does it have to get before Ramaphosa realises Gigaba is not only an unreliable embarrassment to the governing African National Congress, but also to the nation?

This week, even as he was caught up in the salacious gossip about his allegedly intercepted sex video, Gigaba, 47, was slammed by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane for lying under oath about the Fireblade Aviation terminal at OR Tambo International Airport .

Mkhwebane singled him out for violating both the constitution and the executive ethics code.

However, the reality is that lying under oath is called perjury – and that is a criminal offence.

If a lying minister – and one who certainly appears as though he was an integral part of the state capture project through granting the controversial Gupta family citizenship in a dubious way – is allowed to remain in state office, and if he does not face the legal consequences of his criminal behaviour, then the president’s much-vaunted “new dawn” of political accountability and clean government will turn out to be nothing but a sham.