Former home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba, who left his job under a cloud of controversy, says he doesn’t miss public office.

Gigaba said now, with a bit of time on his hands, he has reignited his passion of giving motivational talks to young people, imparting leadership and developing life skills.

Yesterday, the disgraced former minister spoke to pupils at Tsosoloso Ya Africa Secondary School in Ebony Park, Midrand, as part of a tour to schools organised by local social entrepreneur Vuyo Sibisi.

Gigaba encouraged the pupils to unlock their success by breaking boundaries and achieving the unimaginable.

“Stop worrying about what you are going through now. Your only focus should be your education. Never set yourself tasks and goals that others have achieved before,” he said.

“Out of you must emerge leaders better than Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Cyril Ramaphosa, among others, because we want you to be better than all who have emerged as the leaders of our country,” said Gigaba.

“If you do that you would have achieved all that we want our young people to achieve in the future.”

Gigaba resigned as minister and from parliament after mounting pressure for Ramaphosa to fire him as a result of several scandals that surrounded him and after the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court upheld an earlier finding that he lied to the high court in the Fireblade saga.

He was also embroiled in sexting scandal after a video of him exposing his manhood went viral on social media.

Gigaba told Sowetan yesterday he had been involved in youth motivation for some time now. “It is something I have been doing even when I was in government, to visit schools and do learner motivation.

“Now that I have got a bit of time on my hands, I am going to do it a little bit more. I intend to develop it into a project that I am going to pursue throughout the country,” he said.

Gigaba said he did not miss being in public office and was looking forward to doing a lot more work with young people.

“I don’t miss it at all. I have been in parliament for 16 years. This was a necessary break. I appreciate the break that I have taken,” he said.

Asked if he would be willing to go back to the public service, Gigaba said it was up to the ANC to decide his fate.

“ I am happy to play any role that the ANC assigns to me. If the ANC intends that I should not undertake public office responsibility in the near future, I will accept that and continue with my private undertakings in the form of youth leadership and life skills development.”