‘The commission has nothing do with our divorce’ – Norma Mngoma

Continuing with her testimony on Friday morning, Norma Mngoma told the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture the commission had nothing to do with her divorce from her estranged husband and former finance minister Malusi Gigaba.

Mngoma returned to the commission to continue with her evidence relating to the Gupta family and her estranged husband’s dealings with the fugitive brothers after her testimony was abruptly stopped on Thursday evening.

During the proceedings, Mngoma spoke about the process of her divorce from Gigaba. She dropped her married Gigaba surname after salacious allegations her husband had another affair.

ALSO READ: A brief history of Norma Mngoma and Malusi Gigaba’s stormy relationship

Mngoma told the commission the divorce was not a big deal to her as it was peacefully settled in private.

“When I approached Malusi earlier in the year, I said to him can we have a divorce for my personal reasons and I explained all the reasons why I wanted us to divorce and I wanted us to do it amicably and silently. So when Malusi decided to file for the divorce he went to Sunday World,” she said.

She added that she wanted a peaceful divorce to protect her kids.

Mngoma dismissed Gigaba’s statement which claimed she told him that if he paid a settlement for their divorce and dropped the charges against her she would not appear at the commission.

She said the commission had nothing to do with their divorce.

“Me appearing at the commission has nothing do with our divorce and it was never at hand. [Even if] we were doing the settlement I was still going to come to the commission because that was me clarifying my arrest that is put out there why my gadgets were taken,” she said.

During an interview on eNCA late last year, Norma said she was willing to appear before the commission to testify about what she had seen during her marriage to Gigaba.

This was after Mngoma was arrested in July 2020 after allegedly causing extensive damage to a multimillion-rand Mercedes-Benz driven by Gigaba.

Charges of crimen injuria and malicious damage to property against Mngoma were since dropped in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court in March this year.

Mngoma also denied Gigaba’s claim that she showed her WhatsApp conversations between her and the commission.

“There’s no WhatsApp communications because I have never communicated with the commission via WhatsApp,” she said.

READ MORE: Malusi had phones wiped to avoid being ‘Brian Molefed’, claims Norma Mngoma

Regarding her arrest, Mngoma told the commission the fact that the Hawks members who arrested her drove all the way from Mpumalanga to arrest her at her home in Pretoria meant Malusi knew what the plan was.

This is after evidence leader advocate Anton Myburgh indicated that Gigaba said, in his affidavit, that Mngoma was lying over the matter that he asked her for electronic devices to give to an IT expert.

“Firstly if this is not true, why were the Hawks involved in my case? Where we stay there’s a Brooklyn police station which is less than 10 minutes away from my house so if I did something that was supposed to be reported to the police Malusi supposed to that police station and the members of the South African Police Service were supposed to come to my home. For the fact that members of the Hawks from Mpumalanga drove all the way when they came to arrest me at home Malusi knew what he was planning.

“[Secondly] on their affidavit they [Hawks offciers] lied to the NPA [because] they said they were police who are stationed in Brooklyn, which they lied on their affidavit. They were members of Hawks,” she said.

Mngoma further pointed out that the person who opened the charges against her was Gigaba’s friend from Middelburg.

Watch the proceedings, courtesy of SABC News, below: