Leave my wife out of politics, Gigaba orders Shivambu
The exchange took place on Tuesday morning when the finance minister was briefing parliament's finance committee.
Malusi Gigaba, during a press briefing, 18 January 2017, Pretoria. Picture: Jacques Nelles
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba is unimpressed with Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) deputy president Floyd Shivambu after discussing his wife during a parliamentary committee meeting.
When Gigaba protested that he was a politician and not his family, and that Shivambu should not drag his wife into politics, the fighter remained unapologetic.
The EFF deputy president tweeted after the exchange: “His wife speaks [with extreme mediocrity] about politics & how she’s provided IT solutions to Home Affairs, yet he cries foul when we ask him.”
The exchange took place on Monday morning when the finance minister was briefing parliament’s finance committee on his department’s plans in preparation of budget votes taking place next week.
During the same meeting, Shivambu told MPs: “It is factually incorrect that his [Malusi’s] wife brought an IT solution to DHA,” eNCA reported.
This follows hot on the heels of a Twitter row that erupted after the minister’s wife, Norma Gigaba, gave an interview on eNCA at the weekend.
In the interview, Mrs Gigaba told the host, Ayanda Allie-Paine, she was a self-made woman, and there was more to her life than being a wife to the finance minister. She said she had made huge strides in the technology world, going from wearing work overalls to sitting in the boardroom and clinching major deals.
“In the beginning, I wore overalls, but being a technician and desktop publisher made me realise that I don’t want to dress up like this, I want to do IT,” Gigaba said.
“I am into business. We’ve got clients like Impala Platinum, where we bring IT into mining. We bring IT into aviation, and also, I deal with a lot of tenders.”
In the interview, she also revealed that when her husband was informed by President Jacob Zuma he would be made finance minister, his biggest worry was about the future of the home affairs department, where he was the minister at the time.
Watch the interview in the article below:
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