I did not try to kill him, says Norma Mngoma of 'obsessed' and 'attached to power' Malusi Gigaba

Former minister Malusi Gigaba’s estranged wife Norma Mngoma has hit back at allegations that she tried to kill him, saying it was a figment of his imagination.

It was reported in August that the Hawks were apparently investigating Mngoma's involvement in a plot to kill the former public works and home affairs minister.

Mngoma has previously denied such claims, and in a 30-minute interview with eNCA — which was aired on Thursday evening — she again said there was no such plot. It was, she said, an imaginary conspiracy.

“Like, on a serious note, it is a lie. He is lying. I don’t think there is anyone who wants to kill him. I think it is all in his head because if there was something like that, he would never leave home without bodyguards,” she said.

She added: “Even now during lockdown, he was driving himself. Bodyguards were paid at Luthuli House [the ANC headquarters] to drive him around but they never came home. But if your life is under threat like he portrays it, you would [have] bodyguards 24/7 and also bodyguards would never leave the house. He is imagining things. But for me to try to kill him, it is a total lie. That I can put it out there.”

Mngoma, a mother of two who has ditched Gigaba’s surname, is in the middle of a legal spat with her estranged husband after a breakdown in their marriage. Divorce proceedings are under way.

Pre-empting the interview, Gigaba tweeted that he would not be commenting.

Cutting a confident figure, Mngoma told eNCA that the allegations of her plotting to murder Gigaba emanated after her arrest at the end of July.

She said there was nothing about the alleged plot in her case docket, nor was she “questioned in any court about that”.

“So I am still waiting for him to tell me who I conspired with and who are those people and why I would do such a thing. So I think it is all in his head,” she said.

Mngoma then went in further.

“Sometimes, he is too obsessed about this thing of being special — and it also comes with him thinking everyone wants to kill him. Even when he resigned, oh, when he told me that he was forced to resign, let me put it that way ... he was angry about his blue lights being removed. I never knew that he was so attached to power and so attached to all these things, and he became such an angry person because he wanted the blue lights,” she said.

She, however, did not rule out the possibility that he could one day become a minister again — “because everything is possible with politics”.

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