By Kaunda Selisho
The minister will also have to pay the costs of the case, which leaves him with few further avenues to turn to.The Constitutional Court has dismissed Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba’s application for leave to appeal against a lower court ruling that he lied under oath in the Fireblade case.
The matter was dismissed with costs but the court ordered that Gigaba’s application for condonation be granted.
Similar to labour law, an application for condonation requires the defendant to make an additional application to the court outlining the reason that he/she failed to refer the case timeously.
During recent proceedings at the commission into the Fireblade aviation matter businessman Nicky Oppenheimer and Manne Dipico told Parliament that Gigaba had lied under oath when he insisted that he never gave the company approval to operate a private terminal at OR Tambo International Airport.
Earlier in February, the High Court in Pretoria handed Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba a bitter blow to his hopes of remaining in office when it handed down judgment finding that he had lied under oath in his testimony while he was home affairs minister in his first stint.
The Democratic Alliance then referred him to the public protector.
The matter before court related to an aviation company, Fireblade, owned by the Oppenheimer family, which had wanted to open a private international terminal at OR Tambo International Airport.
Judge Neil Tuchten found that the minister had been deliberate in his untruths. “The minister has committed a breach of the Constitution so serious that I could characterise it as a violation.”
The company had sued Gigaba for allegedly reneging on his pledge to make officials available to them to staff their customs and immigration facility. Gigaba denied that he had approved the terminal, but the court ultimately found against him.
His appeal against the judgment was then dismissed in the Supreme Court of Appeal with costs.
Public protector Busisiwe Mhwebane then recommended President Cyril Ramaphosa to institute disciplinary action against him for violating the constitution and the Executive Ethics Code and others have since called for Gigaba to be fired. The Ciziten.
