1. Early life

2. Early political career

3. Later political career

4. Controversy
    Dubai Bank Account  Visa regulations  Fireblade Aviation  State capture  Transnet  Eskom  SAA 

5. Personal life

6. References

7. External links

Knowledge Malusi Nkanyezi Gigaba MP (born 30 August 1971) is a South African politician who served as Minister of Home Affairs of The Republic of South Africa from 27 February 2018 until his resignation 13 November 2018, he also held the post from 25 May 2014 until 31 March 2017. He previously served as Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Public Enterprises and Minister of Finance in the government of South Africa.

He was first elected to the National Assembly of South Africa in 1999 as Member of Parliament for the African National Congress, he resigned in 2001 but was elected to the National Assembly again in 2004. President Thabo Mbeki appointed him to the position of Deputy Minister of Home Affairs. President Jacob Zuma appointed Gigaba as Minister of Public Enterprsies, succeeding Barbara Hogan in October 2010. He served in this position until 2014, when he was appointed Minister of Home Affairs. Gigaba was appointed Minister of Finance in March 2017, after the controversial dismissal of Pravin Gordhan.

In February 2018, Gigaba was again appointed Minister of Home Affairs in the cabinet of Cyril Ramaphosa. He served until his resignation in November 2018, after mounting pressure for him to resign or President Cyril Ramaphosa to dismiss him. Minister of Transport, Blade Nzimande, is currently serving as Acting Minister of Home Affairs. Gigaba resigned as Member of the National Assembly on 15 November 2018.^[1][2][3]

Early life

Gigaba is the second born to Reverend Jabulani Gigaba and Nomthandazo Gigaba. He has three sisters and a brother. Gigaba did his primary school education at Mathonsi Primary School in Mandeni around 1983. He then proceeded to do his high school education at Vryheid State High School in 1988.^[4] He attended Ethalana high school in the district of Umzinyathi where he attained his matric. He earned a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Durban-Westville (now part of the University of KwaZulu-Natal) in 1991, and a Masters degree in Social Policy.

Early political career

During this period Gigaba became involved in various student and youth organisations such as Congress of South African Students (COSAS), the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO), the South African Student Congress (SASCO) and Young Christian Students (YCS). Some of these organisations such as COSAS and SASCO were aligned to the banned African National Congress (ANC). It was his involvement in these organisations that laid the foundation for his activities in the ANC Youth League. Gigaba has also been active in youth organizations, and was elected president of the African National Congress Youth League three times in a row (1996, 1998, 2001).

When the ANC, Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), South African Communist Party (SACP) and other liberation movements were unbanned in 1990, he joined the African National Congress Youth League, SACP and the ANC. That same year he completed his Bachelor of Pedagogics at UDW, but continued pursuing a postgraduate degree. Gigaba became one of the founding members of the Education Students Society University of Durban-Westville in 1992. The following year (1993) he was elected as chairman of SASCO at the University Durban-Westville (UDW).

Later political career

In 2004 he was re-elected to Parliament where he became Deputy Minister of Home Affairs until October 2010. He was involved in a new visa system allowing easier legal flow of migration between South Africa and Zimbabwe. On 1 November 2010, he became the Minister of Public Enterprises of the Republic of South Africa. In 2011, Gigaba lashed out at the ANCYL leadership, labelling them as "anarchists" when they called for the nationalisation of the country's resources. Since his appointment as Minister of Public Enterprises, he has become a leading figure in the South African government. He is responsible for the a significant aspect of the government's massive infrastructure investment programme through the State Owned Companies that are led by him such as Transnet and Eskom.^[5] On 25 May 2014, President Jacob Zuma appointed Gigaba as Minister of Home Affairs.

Gigaba waived the basic residential requirement when granting South African citizenship to the Gupta family, and it was alleged that this move was irregular or at least unprecedented.^[6] No wrongdoing was proven however, but efforts by parliamentary committees to get clarity on the Guptas' naturalization process were frustrated by Gigaba's lack of appearances.^[7]

On 31 March 2017, Gigaba was appointed Minister of Finance, replacing Pravin Gordhan, raising suspicions that he was deployed by Zuma to assist him in developing his allegedly corrupt relationship with the Guptas.

On 27 February 2018, Gigaba was removed from his position as the Minister of Finance and replaced by Nhlanhla Nene. On the same day Gigaba was appointed as Minister of Home Affairs by President Cyril Ramaphosa following the announcement of his new cabinet, replacing Ayanda Dlodlo.

On 13 November 2018, Gigaba resigned as Minister of Home Affairs and subsequently also as Member of the National Assembly on 15 November 2018.

Controversy

Dubai Bank Account

State security agents once investigated a mysterious offshore bank account opened in Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba's name. The account was opened in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, when Gigaba was still public enterprises minister.^[8]

Gigaba apparently told state security agents that the account was opened by one of his officials without his knowledge. But banking and security insiders have indicated that it is difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to open an offshore account using a person's name without their knowledge, and that this could amount to fraud. His spokesperson denied any connection with the account or knowledge of the investigation.^[9]

Visa regulations

At home affairs his reputation took a blow when he implemented arduous rules for those travelling with children, creating concerns around South Africa's tourism industry.^[10]

Prior to the announcement of the visa regulations, tourist arrivals into South Africa had been steadily growing. 2011 = 2,176,719 arrivals 2012 = 2,505,763 arrivals (15,1% growth) 2013 = 2,660,631 arrivals (6,1% growth) but this changed abruptly in the third quarter of 2014 – the in-person visa application requirement came into effect in June 2014. Since then, there has been a systematic decline in tourist arrivals.

From Sep – Dec 2014, Brazil was down -37%, China -46.9% and India -14.4%, continuing into 2015. The June 2015 arrivals data from Statistics SA showed overseas arrivals down -13% . At the same time competitors were up. According to SA Tourism R7.51bn of revenue has been lost to the country.^[11]

Fireblade Aviation

In a judgment relating to the Fireblade Aviation case on 27 October 2017, the North Gauteng High Court found that Gigaba had lied under oath during his tenure as Minister of Home Affairs.^[12] The judge called Gigaba's arguments "disingenuous, spurious and fundamentally flawed, laboured and meritless, bad in law, astonishing, palpably untrue, untenable and not sustained by objective evidence, uncreditworthy and nonsensical".^[13] An appeal by Gigaba was heard in December. Judge Tuchten concluded that "the Minister has committed a breach of the Constitution so serious that I could characterize it as a violation".^[14][15] Gigaba then approached the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court concurrently. The Constitutional Court dismissed the application with costs, saying it was not in the interests of justice to hear the matter at that stage because the Supreme Court of Appeal had to rule on the matter first.^[16] The Supreme Court of Appeal on 28 March 2018 dismissed Gigaba's application for leave to appeal against the judgment, saying there was no reasonable prospect of success. Judge Malcolm Wallis said in his judgment that "there is nothing to suggest that the issues raised by the minister are of such a nature as to warrant the grant of leave to appeal notwithstanding the lack of prospects of success". The application was dismissed with costs.^[17] Gigaba's application to the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal against a lower court ruling that he lied under oath was dismissed on 1 November 2018 "as it bears no prospects of success."^[18]

State capture

The pivotal point in the state capture project was the appointment of Malusi Gigaba as Minister of Public Enterprises who, exploiting the loophole in the Public Finance Management Act that made it possible to use the procurement procedures of SOEs to benefit selected contractors who had been sanctioned by the Gupta network, initiated the “repurposing” of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) as vehicles for looting.^[19]

Transnet

This included appointing Iqbal Sharma, an Essa and Gupta friend, to the Transnet board and Brian Molefe, now a known Gupta intimate, as Transnet chief executive in 2011.

Gigaba reportedly wanted to elevate Sharma to board chair, but this was shot down by his Cabinet colleagues. Sharma was then made chair of the board acquisitions and disposals committee, a new structure to oversee large procurement.

In July 2012, Transnet issued its tender for 1,064 freight locomotives; 599 electric and the rest diesel. This included R25-billion in tenders that were signed off by Molefe and awarded to CSR (China South Rail).^[20] CSR in turn paid Tequesta Group Ltd, a Gupta-linked shell company, R5.3 billion in consultancy fees.^[21]

Eskom

When Gigaba came in as the Public Enterprises Minister in 2009 'Eskom had R19.6bn in cash, absolutely no reason to worry about liquidity. When he left in 2014, Eskom was begging for money.'^[22]

One of his first moves was to overturn a procurement decision on which the Eskom executive and board had signed off — the replacement of Koeberg steam generators. Soon after, he gutted the board and agreed to new appointments, most of whom had no corporate or electricity sector experience, packing it with Gupta business associates, their relatives or their wives. These include former Oakbay director Mark Pamensky, Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane's adviser Kuben Moodley, and Nazia Carrim, the wife of a relative of close Gupta associate Salim Essa.With the governance of Eskom thus captured and repurposed, the next period witnessed the scaling up of grand corruption, with the Guptas managing the complex enterprise of brokering and money laundering.^[23]

The most bold-faced examples include Eskom's facilitating and financing of the Guptas’ acquisition of Glencore's Optimum Coal Holdings. This scheme had already started under Gigaba, when coal miner Glencore was driven into "business rescue". But it was then Eskom CE Molefe, partnering with Singh, Koko and mines minister Mosebenzi Zwane, who made the heist possible.

While Glencore was shaken down, the Guptas’ Tegeta benefited from an Eskom guarantee (R1.6bn), a hefty and unusual prepayment (R600m) and additional lucrative coal contracts, effectively enabling them to buy Optimum. Further instances of Gupta-favoured coal contracts and the squeezing out of large coal miners were revealed in Parliament's inquiry report published on 28th November 2018.^[24][25].

The report conclusions included: 'The Committee finds that that the Executive arm of government represented by the two former ministers – Gigaba and Brown – was grossly negligent in carrying out its responsibility as the sole Shareholder of Eskom.'^[26] and 'recommends that the two former Public Enterprises ministers Gigaba and Brown must make presentations to the Zondo Commission in order to share insights into the roles they played as Shareholder representatives during the period of corruption and corporate capture that flourished at Eskom.'^[27]

SAA

In 2012 Gigaba delayed support for a turnaround strategy for SAA put forward by then board chair Cheryl Carolus, causing financial damage to the airline.

After Carolus resigned, Gigaba brought back Vuyisile Kona as both acting CEO and board chair after a meeting at the Guptas’ Saxonwold house with Rajesh Gupta, Duduzane Zuma, and Ace Magashule's son Tshepiso.^[28]

During 2017, South African Airways was bailed out to the tune of R5-billion, including a portion of R3-billion that was meant to settle SAA's debt with Citibank. Another R5-billion payment to SAA was due at the end of March 2018, a month after Gigaba announced VAT increase.

The reason for these costly failures in SoEs is poor corporate governance, whose seeds sprouted when Minister Gigaba was at the helm of the Department of Public Enterprises. Poor understanding of government's oversight role as a shareholder, lack of strategic perspective, and absence of a developmental mindset are other factors that undermine effective governance of SoEs.^[29]

Personal life

Gigaba's former mistress Buhle Mkhize and his wife Norma Gigaba have engaged in several spats on social media,^[30][31] eventually leading to confirmation of the affair.^[32][33]

A video of Gigaba performing a solo sexual act went viral on social media. Gigaba apologized for the incident in a series of tweets. ^[34][35]

References

External links

• Official site at the South African Ministry of Home Affairs
• Zimbabwean starves outside home affairs
• [//web.archive.org/web/20100628035728/http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1143097 Sowetan deputy minister meets brother of deceased]
• Official site at the Parliament of South Africa

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