Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor speaks out on her second day before the Zondo Commission, suggesting that Luthuli House was informed of former president Jacob Zuma’s dangerous Gupta alliance as far back as 2010.
The second day of testimony by former ANC MP, Vytjie Mentor, ended with a heart-rending plea for help following security-related issues at the Johannesburg hotel where she occupied.
Vytjie Mentor spoke about worries for her safety following two strange incidents at the hotel where she is staying while in Johannesburg for the State Capture Inquiry.
She revealed that on the eve of her first day’s testimony on Monday, two latches on the door of her room, the same one she has occupied each time since becoming a witness, were broken.
On Tuesday morning as she briefly returned to her room to fetch her glasses, the hotel key card wouldn’t work and the door, quite unusually, was opening and closing without it.
Justice Raymond Zondo, chairman of the inquiry, immediately asked the commission team to examine Mentor’s concerns, and if necessary to arrange security for the former ANC MP.
He thanked Mentor for trusting the commission with this information and assured her that her safety was important and that, subject to what she may be comfortable with, staff would explore other measures to ensure her safety and, if necessary, also some form of protection.
Mentor’s public State Capture journey began after she made revelations on Facebook about a Gupta offer to make her the minister of public enterprises while on holiday in Thailand in March 2016.
And that, just as Gupta brother, Ajay, had allegedly told her at a meeting in 2010, former Public Enterprises minister Barbara Hogan was indeed sacked two months later, although Mentor didn’t get the job, having shown herself to be a little agitated and inflexible to the Gupta demands.
In May 2016 she provided police with a detailed statement of allegations about Zuma, his son Duduzane, the Guptas and some members of Cabinet.
While her initial testimony at the commission dealt largely with her encounters with the Gupta brothers and the former president in China and Saxonwold, Tuesday was marked by serious allegations that she had immediately alerted senior ANC officials as well as fellow MPs who had served with her on the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence in Parliament.
Mentor had earlier testified how, upon travelling to Johannesburg for a meeting with Zuma, she was instead taken to their Sahara office and later to their Saxonwold home where the job offer was made.
On Tuesday she said that she had had a meeting with former ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe and Jessie Duarte to inform them of the September 2010 meeting with the Guptas. Mantashe, she said, had left the meeting early while Duarte, whom she claimed had appeared less interested, allegedly said her concerns were “noted”.
Mentor says that she had also informally told fellow MPs who served with her on the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence at Parliament around that time.
This was after she realised that Ajay Gupta had allegedly had knowledge about an unspecified “Top Secret” Denel project when she met him a few weeks earlier.
She told the commission that once one of the opposition MPs raised the incident at the start of the committee meeting, the then chairman, former State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele, had committed to taking it up with “Luthuli House”.
She was not aware of anything ever coming of this, but this, along with her claim to have briefed Duarte and in some part Mantashe, sends a clear signal that senior ANC members were aware of Zuma’s problematic Gupta alliance as far back as 2010.