Norma Mngoma formerly Gigaba, the fabulous ex-wife of Malusi Gigaba South Africa’s former minister of Home affairs. Testified against her husband at the Zondo Commission this trial on the eve of Freedom Day was an insightful look into the lives and inner workings of some of South Africa's ministers and government officials.
Norma Gigaba, a public figure and insta guru who has 1.1 million followers, was approached by the commission after she said she would be prepared to testify against her husband at the commission, in an interview.
The Zondo Commission has been dragging on for months, most South Africans had forgotten about the trial frankly, that was until norma confidently testified against her estranged husband Mausi Gigaba. The testimony had the whole country on the edge of their seats tweeting as Norma took the stand to testify.
This resulted in Norma trending on Twitter for some of the claims she made during the trial. Norma has always been known for her amazing sense of style and glamorous lifestyle, she has never been shy of her opulent lifestyle and her love for some of the finer things in life, but tweeps and the rest of Mzansi were shocked to find out exactly how much that opulent lifestyle costs.
Norma also dropped a bombshell stating that while living with Gupta they funded various aspects of the Gigaba's lavish style supplying everything from a white 3 series BMW, a gold necklace for their firstborn son. She also revealed that she and her husband frequently received large sums of cash from the Gupta's some of it was purely a gift while they also kept large amounts of cash in their home safe and Malusi told her it was money from Ajay Gupta meant to fund elections for the ANC.
The icing on the cake for much of Twitter was hearing how much her wedding to Malusi Gigaba, in her testimony she stated that her wedding cost a jaw-dropping 5 million rands. “[The wedding] It was R4m to R5m ... it was paid in cash,” said Mngoma. she went on to explain that this amount of money to her and gigaba was anything but unusual as the was meant to cover both the traditional and white wedding adding “I didn't find it strange [the amount] because Malusi has been a minister for a very, very long time and also he told me that he had savings with the money market that he saves money from. And most of the expenses we don't pay for them because it's paid by the state ... so to have a lot of cash is not something that was strange to me,”
Norma’s open testimony was met with mixed reaction on Twitter, some people citing her willingness to testify as a way to get back at her estranged husband and not a matter of justice. In Norma's willingness to testify against Malusi Gigaba the state dropped all charges against her.
Tweeps were quick to remind each other that before divorcing Melusi Gigaba she was aware of the corrupt dealings of her husband and his colleagues and said nothing as she was benefiting from it. People took a moment to react to her willingness to testify by using memes.
When Norma Gigaba is done, let us remember that she was a willing participant in activities that she knew ultimately were at the expense of the taxpayer and by implication, the poor.
Norma has yet to address the findings of the trial on social media but she did post a picture of Instagram accompanied by a cryptic caption something has to do with her experience in the trial.
