Ramaphosa ordered to discipline Gigaba over 'dishonesty'
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has ordered President Cyril Ramaphosa to take disciplinary action against Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba.
Mkhwebane released several reports that her office investigated in Pretoria on Wednesday.
Democratic Alliance (DA) chief whip John Steenhuisen laid a complaint following a high court judgment, which found that Gigaba lied under oath in his legal battle with the Oppenheimer family over their proposed private terminal at OR Tambo International Airport.
The high court judgment found that the minister’s arguments were "disingenuous, spurious and fundamentally flawed, laboured and meritless, bad in law, astonishing, palpably untrue, untenable and not sustained by objective evidence, uncreditworthy and nonsensical."
The Supreme Court of Appeal subsequently dismissed Gigaba’s application for leave to appeal against the judgment, saying there was no reasonable prospect of success.
Mkhwebane found that Gigaba violated the Executive Ethics Code, the Parliament Code of Ethics and the Constitution.
"The president must...within a reasonable time but not later than 14 days after receiving this report, submit a copy thereof and any comment s thereto with a report on any action to tbe taken in this regard to the National Assembly. The speaker of the National Assembly must within 14 days of the receipt of this report from the president, refer minister Gigaba's violation of the code of ethical conduct and disclosure of members' interests for Assembly and permanent Council members to the joint committe on ethics and members' interests for consideration in terms of the provisions of paragraph 10 of Parliament's code of ethics.
" The president must advise the public protector of action taken by the president within 20 days of the date of this report. And the speaker of the National Assembly must within 30 days of the publication of this report provide the public protector with an implementation plan."
Mkhwebane says she sent Gigaba a notice to afford him an opportunity to respond to the provisional findings but he failed to respond.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) earlier this month filed papers in the High Court in Pretoriah, challenging President Ramaphosa’s decision to reappoint Gigaba.
According to the DA, Gigaba has acted dishonestly and is not "fit and proper" to hold a position in Cabinet.