Gigaba resignation cop-out to avoid Ethics Committee and ensure benefits
15 November 2018
The DA notes the resignation of former Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, as an ANC Member of Parliament.
Gigaba’s 11th hour resignation is taken straight from the playbook of disgraced former deputy minister and convicted abuser, Mduduzi Manana, who resigned in July also to avoid going before Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interests and to safeguard his benefits.
We are treated to a repeat of an ANC classic. Yet again a senior member of the ANC has avoided accountability by resigning once the writing was clearly on the wall. Yet again ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has been spared the task of taking an errand minister and long-serving ANC lieutenant to task.
President Ramaphosa has once again failed to show leadership by giving Gigaba, and himself, the easy way out. Like Manana and convicted fraudster Tony Yengeni, Gigaba will continue to serve on the ANC’s National Executive Committee and will no doubt be redeployed somewhere else in the organisation.
The Public Protector clearly instructed Ramaphosa to provide the National Assembly with “a report on any action taken or to be taken in regard to [her report].” Ramaphosa’s letter to the NA today effectively says “nothing to report” and merely notes that he has accepted Gigaba’s resignation.
South Africa has an accountability problem and, time and again, the ANC shows us how not to deal with those found wanting in court. The message from the ANC is clear: make hay while the sun shines, then simply walk away when the good times are over.
Issued by John Steenhuisen, Chief Whip of the Democratic Alliance, 15 November 2018
