Mrs ‘there is nothing I can do with R3,000’… that’s not normal

“Also in my life, there is nothing I can do with R3,000,” Norma Gigaba tells the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture as she burns our ex-minister-snazzy-dresser Malusi.

“I had a credit card with R100,000 to spend every month. I buy a handbag between R30,000 and R40 000.”

Well, Norma-I’m-changing my-name-before-the-divorce, I am, quite frankly, envious. I’m not talking about a handbag they rush me even R10,000 for.

Mine comes from a Ghanaian shop in China City for the royal sum of 150 bucks and those little leather blocks woven together get more compliments than your fake Gucci will ever get, I’m sure.

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But I am gobsmacked. Do you realise that your handbag is enough to save my house from going on auction?

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Like all not connected-green-and-gold South Africans, I took a pay cut during Covid.

Like all “my-daddy-doesn’t know-the-right-people”, my kids lost their jobs. But while we count our R3,000 – very carefully – you worry about that bag that hides that platinum credit card.

Oh, I have a “private client” card in all its black glory and still marvel at it.

Not that I have ever even e-mailed my “private banker” because I know, they know like I know I have only six bucks in my account by the 10th of the month.

But you can’t understand that, can you, Norma? You have never, like me, faced life without a partner; a second income.

Oh, you’ll tell me now, you are single. But will you also tell me about the settlement the Gupta brothers are paying for? Still, I’m sure?

If not, and Malusi is purely selling 100 of his 200 suits to pay you off, take my advice: the price of one of your handbags will pay for a very good advocate.

Try Billy Downer, perhaps? Not that I’m an expert on advocates.

ALSO READ: Norma airs Malusi Gigaba’s dirty laundry – all 100 suits’ worth

But I did go to high court last year to stop my house being auctioned off just because I owed the price of your handbag – and I went without an advocate.

But that trip cost me the bank’s legal representation, as the justice kindly told me: a cool R40 000 for a day before him.

One handbag for blinded you, a home for all-seeing me. Where’s the justice, I ask? But I wish you well.

Carine Hartman. Picture: Michel Bega