Embattled Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba said on Sunday he would meet President Cyril Ramaphosa soon amid mounting pressure for him to resign after Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane said he lied under oath and following the leaking of a private s-e-x video.
“I’m not going to resign,” Gigaba told the privately owned eNCA television channel, but added “I will obviously be guided” by the President Cyril Ramaphosa and the African National Congress.
Mkhwebane on Tuesday said the minister had lied in court while testifying last year in a case filed by a company controlled by the wealthy Oppenheimer family.
The court case hinged on whether Gigaba had approved a private terminal at Johannesburg airport for the Oppenheimers.
In an unrelated case, Gigaba, 47, last Sunday said on twitter he had been the target of extortion attempts by an opposition politician after a s-e-x video emerged following what he described as theft by hacking.
The defiant Gigaba said he was not just simply trying to hang on to his job.
Malusi Gigaba fights back: ‘I will not give in to devious plot’
The under-siege minister is dodging bullets from all quarters, but says he will not resign and ‘give in to a devious plot’.
“It’s about fighting to protect my integrity and to protect my image and to ensure that I do not become a victim of devious political campaigns. I will not be trampled upon,” said the minister.
He said he would soon meet Ramaphosa “to put my side of the story”.
Speaking to public broadcaster SABC, Gigaba added that the leaking of the video had been politically motivated.
“We (Gigaba and his wife) have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of,” he said.
“I don’t have a problem…. It was intended to embarrass me, to decapacitate me politically, to humiliate me and my family publicly, to embarrass the African National Congress,” he said.
Mkhwebane recommended that Ramaphosa take disciplinary action against the minister for “telling an untruth under oath and before a court of law”.
Gigaba served as finance minister for a year under Jacob Zuma, who was ousted as president in February over corruption. When Ramaphosa succeeded Zuma, he moved him to the home affairs ministry in February 2018.
Source: News24
