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Gigaba denies visiting the Gupta’s residence three times while Public Enterprise Minister

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Former Public Enterprise minister Malusi Gigaba has denied at the State Capture Commission in Johannesburg all allegations levelled against him by Witness Three.

Witness Three stuck to his guns and on Monday insisted Gigaba had visited the Gupta residence in Saxonworld more than three times while he was working for him. He says Gigaba allegedly instructed him not to record the visits in his logbook.

The witness told the Commission they had to honour those instructions because he was a Minister.

In a statement read by Gigaba’s legal counsel, Advocate Richard Solomon, Gigaba also denied collecting and receiving cash from the Gupta residence.

“Are you able to say where the money came from? And you said the money came from the Saxonworld residence. So here you are saying you are able to tell the Commission that the cash you allegedly saw Gigaba had, he got it from the Gupta residence?” Solomon probed Witness Three who replied “correct” to the questions.

Malusi Gigaba’s legal team cross-examines witnesses:

‘State capture intensified under Gigaba’

In January, Gavin Craythorn, a contractor to a state-owned diamond miner company, Alexkor, told the Commission that state capture project intensified following Gigaba’s appointment as Public Enterprises Minister.

Gigaba was accused of spearheading a damaging strategy that has been described as a Gupta agenda.

According to Craythorn, Gigaba’s strategy involved redirecting the state-owned mine from its lucrative diamond mining operation to coal mining.

This was allegedly part of a plan to capture the Marine Diamond mining operation by spreading misinformation about the mine reaching its lifespan in five years.

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