Gigaba hammers media for helping to peddle ‘lies’ about him

“We must try, to the best of our abilities, to avoid being information peddlers,” Gigaba told journalists at the end of a media briefing in Pretoria on Thursday after speaking about the state of the economy.

He lashed out at reports on allegations levelled against him by Julius Malema and Vytjie Mentor and said the media was too quick to publish unverified allegations.

“I would have been much happier if you had studied a little bit the issues you are bringing up so that you are able to argue them out properly.

“Remember that at one stage I was accused of having an offshore account. Those accusations still hang in the air and I’m being asked to prove if I have it or not. But the person who made the allegation hasn’t been asked to provide prima facie evidence.”

Malema and the EFF had alleged in a press conference that the Gupta family had bought a house for Gigaba while he was still in another portfolio.

“There was an allegation that in Cape Town I live in a house that was bought for me, not a government house. And some of your colleagues in the media ran with the story without calling public works to ask. It’s a simple thing. Call public works. Ask. You would have found your information.

“Instead of peddling wrong information, you would have written a correct story that the person making the allegation is lying.”

He then turned to former ANC MP Mentor, who has variously alleged that Gigaba has signed a nuclear deal with Russia, which turned out not to be true, had an affair with a woman named Judy and that he is actually Zimbabwean.

“A story is made that I’m not South African. Some of your colleagues run with this story, you don’t check whether this is true or not.

“You allow yourselves to participate in insulting my family, insulting my integrity, insulting my identity.

“An allegation was made that my father wasn’t South African. May his soul rest in peace. But you run with this story, you don’t even dare to check.”

He then turned to an allegation from the EFF that he had personally, and improperly, granted citizenship to the Guptas while he was home affairs minister.

“It could be, as with regards to all the other stories that are being run, that the director-general of home affairs can explain to you that the minister of home affairs on an annual basis deals with not one application for a waiver, but with many. You deal with many decisions, not only waivers. Some you approve, some you reject.

“Because you are the minister, you don’t have capacity in your office to assess and evaluate documentation from people applying for whatever forms of documents.

“Let me just take you through this issue of the naturalisation. These people [the Guptas] applied for naturalisation in 2008 when someone else was minister … they obtained their permanent residency in 2008 when someone else was minister of home affairs.

“Some of them obtained their naturalisation in 2013 when someone else was minister of home affairs. In both instances it wasn’t me.

“Then a number of issues are raised that they are highly invested; secondly, that you grant permanent residence to a father but not the wife, and they ask you to regularise that, and you correct it.

He said the recommendation was ultimately made by this staff to overturn the original decision on the Guptas’ application, “basically saying overturn my decision because new facts have come to light … we’ve reconsidered the matters. That’s the whole principle of appeal. It’s the same in government as it is in the courts.”

He said the allegations were aimed “completely to tarnish my name, to defocus me from my work”.

“I hope you are not part of that agenda. My family has not been spared. My wife has been rubbished. My father is being rubbished in his death. It cannot be right.

“I’m sure that when the public protector looks at all of these issues … let us trust that she will do a thorough job so that we can get to the bottom of the matter. So that when we talk about urgent issues of the economy we don’t get diverted to allegations that have not been proved – where anybody can jump around making an allegation.

“It would seem to me you say ‘it would appear that the Guptas have benefited’.”

He went on to defend his record as minister of home affairs.

“I know that the campaign against us will continue.”

He said people were being paid to run the campaign against him, and it had started on the 30th of March, but he would remain focused on his work.