Public protector asks Cyril Ramaphosa to discipline Malusi Gigaba

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has heaped further pressure on embattled Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba, finding that he violated the executive ethics code and lied under oath.

Earlier in February, the High Court in Pretoria handed Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba a bitter blow to his hopes of remaining in office when it handed down judgment finding that he had lied under oath in his testimony while he was home affairs minister in his first stint.

The Democratic Alliance then referred him to the public protector.

The matter before court related to an aviation company, Fireblade, owned by the Oppenheimer family, which had wanted to open a private international terminal at OR Tambo International Airport.

Judge Neil Tuchten found that the minister had been deliberate in his untruths. “The minister has committed a breach of the Constitution so serious that I could characterise it as a violation.”

The company had sued Gigaba for allegedly reneging on his pledge to make officials available to them to staff their customs and immigration facility. Gigaba denied that he had approved the terminal, but the court ultimately found against him.

The minister said outside parliament in Cape Town, shortly before delivering his one and only budget speech as finance minister, that he would take the matter on appeal and his lawyers were working on the case because “at no stage was there an agreement with Fireblade. Legally you cannot have a private terminal for a family.”

His appeal against the judgment was then dismissed in the Supreme Court of Appeal with costs.

Mkhwebane has recommended that President Cyril Ramaphosa should now take disciplinary action against Gigaba.