‘Fake Gigaba’ has minister in a huff

Johannesburg - Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba was reportedly annoyed at discovering that suspected con artists were impersonating him, having made several attempts to defraud people.

According to an Eastern Cape woman, it all started on a social networking site when she invited a “Malusi Gigaba” as a friend.

The man, who she believed was the minister, did not waste any time accepting her invitation and soon asked to know more about the unwary woman.

Nomfundiso Kulati, a former Umkhonto we Sizwe cadre, jumped at what she thought was an opportunity to share with a like-minded and influential politician her involvement in a local project aimed at uplifting struggling former cadres and people who lived in exile during the struggle.

“I explained to him about our co-operative and he responded excitedly and said ‘this is great’ and ‘a progressive idea’ which he was 100-percent behind. He then asked for my email address so we could communicate further,” Kulati said.

She said she was excited when she received an email from malgig88@gmail.com the next day and believed the minister and former ANC Youth League leader was indeed serious about supporting her project.

An email coming from “Gigaba” then raised some suspicions with Kulati.

The email said: “Contact Mr Charles Seledi in the UK. He is the official deployed to look after the interests and variability of South Africa’s foreign reserve account in UK and Europe. He is presently in London…”

Kulati said Charles from the UK called and asked her to pay £450 (around R6 300) before they could process her financial aid.

A string of emails to “Gigaba” followed, who promised to pay half and ordered her to pay the rest.

She said a Capitec Bank account number was forwarded to her, something she found strange as she believed the account holder had to be in South Africa to access the funds.

This was followed by a series of calls from “Gigaba”, who, according to Kulati, was more interested in when a payment was going to be made, making her even more suspicious.

“He was not interested in documents or anything but money, and it was then that I realised I was falling into a trap. I felt very uncomfortable and stopped communicating with him, but he persistently called and asked when am I making the deposit,” she said.

Kulati then approached Gigaba’s department, which had already received numerous similar reports from people who had been targeted.

Gigaba’s spokesperson, Mayihlome Tshwete, said the minister was infuriated and had the matter reported to law enforcement authorities and the intelligence agency, who were expected to get to the bottom of it and bring the suspect to justice. - The Star