They seek her here, they seek her there
THE Hawks have accused former ANC parliamentary caucus chair Vytjie Mentor of frustrating their investigation of the Gupta family by not co-operating — but she has accused them of lying.
The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation said the only evidence against the Gupta family was Mentor’s affidavit, filed in March, which was hearsay.
The Hawks said they had been quartering the country to track her down, but she was “nowhere to be found”.
Hawks spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi said Mentor had not responded to calls and SMSes, and although the Hawks had been to Cape Town and her home in the Northern Cape, they had been unable to trace her.
“We are pleading with her to avail herself. Her phone is off, but she is on TV. We are now asking if this investigation is worth it or not. She is frustrating the process.”
Mulaudzi said the Mentor investigation was the only one into the Guptas, and the Hawks could not proceed because she was not co-operating.
But Mentor responded: “They are lying. They know where I live — their advocate was here to take my statement, after all — and the very phone number on which you just reached me is on my statement, which they have.”
This week she laid complaints with the police, accusing the head of the Hawks, Berning Ntlemeza, and three other police officers of colluding to defeat the ends of justice.
She alleged the Hawks pressured her into omitting charges of complicity in state capture against President Jacob Zuma.
Mentor, who remains an ANC member, said the Hawks withheld from her statements that she had made regarding state capture, despite these statements having been leaked to the media.
She is central to the allegations of corruption and state capture by people associated with the Guptas.
This was evident from former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report, published this week. Mentor laid the complaints on Friday at the Western Cape offices of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate.
Mentor’s complaints relate to the handling of another complaint she laid with the police regarding an alleged visit she made to the Gupta compound in Saxonwold.
It had been there that she was allegedly offered the position of minister of public enterprises by a member of the Gupta family in exchange for favouring the Guptas with regard to flight routes between South Africa and India.
Mentor said she ran into Zuma at the Gupta house and told him of the offer, but that he had done nothing about it.
She told the Sunday Times: “I have laid these charges to fight wrongdoing. I oppose collusion between the Hawks and the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority]. I realise I am going up against dangerous people, but I do it because the rot must stop.”
The Hawks said Mentor should help the investigation instead of making public statements. “We are wasting resources. People have to drive to Cape Town to look for her . . . we even went to the Northern Cape, where she is from, to find her,” Mulaudzi said.
Her phone is off but she is on TV