Cyril under pressure to axe Gigaba
...as minister dodges parly over Guptas’ papers
PRESSURE is mounting on President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba for bungling the naturalisation of the Guptas and dodging Parliament this week to answer questions on the matter.
Ramaphosa’s acting spokesperson Tyrone Seale said yesterday the president has noted the developments surrounding Gigaba and calls to fire him.
This comes after the EFF and DA said Ramaphosa must take serious action against Gigaba.
Gigaba flip-flopped this week on the naturalisation of the Guptas before failing to show up in Parliament to answer on the matter.
However, Gigaba’s spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete said a sick note has been submitted to Parliament.
Seale would not say if Ramaphosa will act on the minister.
“The president does take note of the developments. He does pay attention to events in government including ministers,” said Seale.
DA chief whip John Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa must fire Gigaba over the Constitutional Court decision this week to refuse to hear his appeal on the Fireblade matter.
His appeal came after the full bench of the High Court in Pretoria said he lied in his evidence.
The EFF has called him a pathological liar over the naturalisation of the Guptas.
Speaker Baleka Mbete lodged a complaint with Deputy President David Mabuza over Gigaba’s no show in Parliament this week.
Mabuza is the leader of government business and he deals with matters relating to the Cabinet and Parliament.
During his tenure as deputy president Ramaphosa received a lot of complaints from opposition parties about the absence Malusi of ministers during question time.
This week opposition parties refused to be addressed by Deputy minister of home affairs Fatima Chohan on the naturalisation of the Guptas, and demanded that the questions be shifted to the next session when Gigaba will be present.
The rules allow that in the absence of ministers deputy ministers respond to questions. But the opposition was up in arms after it learnt Gigaba will no longer come to the House to answer on the questions despite an earlier indication he was going to be present.
The DA has said it will report him to the Ethics Committee, co-chaired by ANC MP Amos Masondo.
Mbete had indicated in the week she was going to try to meet with Mabuza, and the speaker is likely to report back to the programming committee on the progress of the complaint on Thursday.
But political analyst Ralph Mathekga said Gigaba was being “dishonest” and “disingenuous”.
He said Gigaba was implicated in the state capture allegations and should not be “parked” at Home Affairs.
“If we look at how the state capture started, the stateowned enterprises were the ones targeted and he was the Minister of Public Enterprises at the time. He has to go on trial for that as well as his successor, Lynne Brown,” Mathekga said.
He said Gigaba had ruined his own political career and had no-one else to blame.
“There was an allegation that he had an offshore account but nothing has come of it. He must be scrutinised,” he added.
But he called on Ramaphosa to let the law enforcement agencies do their work.
Another political expert, Dr Somadoda Fikeni, said circumstantial evidence showed that Gigaba either facilitated or never discouraged the Guptas from securing business through state capture.
However, it was not clear if he did so because the Guptas were close to former president Jacob Zuma or for his selfinterest.
He said however, he did not think that a recall of Gigaba was the best step as this would create a precedent.
“There’s a commission that has been set up to investigate state capture and this issue should be dealt with there. Until there is evidence that suggests certain ministers’ legitimacy, should the president take action. (sic) For now he should allow that process to run its course,” Dr Fikeni said.