ANC must stop protecting Gigaba on Gupta naturalisation

18 March 2019

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is incensed by the efforts of the African National Congress (ANC) members on the Portfolio Committee for Home Affairs to whitewash the role of former Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba in the unlawful approval of the Guptas’ application for early naturalisation and to cover up his wrongdoing.

The ANC members have made every effort to lay the blame solely on Home Affairs officials for the irregularities in the processing of the application while absolving Gigaba of wrongdoing. This is despite the fact that the application was initially correctly rejected by officials and only approved on the submission of a further application on the grounds of ‘exceptional circumstances’ to the Minister.

The DA fought to include language clearly indicating the culpability of Gigaba in the report. This language was watered down in the final report. When the committee chairperson was confronted with this fact, he claimed that the report was in fact not final.

These efforts to obfuscate and delay are contrary to President Ramaphosa’s repeated calls for the clean up of the state, accountability of those implicated in State Capture, and for all allegations to be tested before the Zondo Commission.

We therefore call on the Portfolio Committee to finalise the report before Parliament rises on 20 March 2019; to ensure that the report includes the culpability of Gigaba as agreed upon rather than the current watered down version; and that the report be referred to the Zondo Commission, per the recommendations of the report, without delay.

Issued by Haniff Hoosen, DA Shadow Minister of Home Affairs, 18 March 2019