Mentor tells inquiry of meeting Gupta brothers
Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor detailed how members of the controversial Gupta family allegedly tried to capture her allegiance in exchange for a cabinet post when she started testifying at the state capture inquiry on Monday.
What began as an introduction on a flight to China ended in the family’s Saxonwold mansion, where she was apparently offered the job of public enterprises minister in exchange for cancelling SA Airways’ flight routes to India.
Implicated in the plot were the three Gupta brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh; former president Jacob Zuma and his son, Duduzane.
Mentor gave evidence before deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo’s commission of inquiry on Monday, and will continue her testimony at 10am on Tuesday. Dressed in a maroon outfit, Mentor was visibly emotional as she took the oath.
Afterwards, she was seen wiping her eyes.
She began her testimony with an account of her controversial trip to China during a state visit in 2010 when she chaired the public enterprises portfolio committee.
Mentor had approached Transnet to fund her trip (which came with a R155,000 price tag) to an investment summit between South Africa and China – a flouting of parliamentary procedure.
This was eventually seen as the reason for her losing her position.
But it was on this trip that Mentor said she became a target of the Guptas’ alleged state capture plot.
Mentor claimed that during her August flight there was a knock on her cubicle door.
The man who introduced himself, she said, was Duduzane – now believed to be at the centre of state capture allegations.
Mentor said he was accompanied by two “Indian-looking” men, one of whom she later identified as Rajesh Gupta.
She paused, taking deep breaths as she tried to recall the conversation.
“[Duduzane] later also requested if he could go and introduce me to another person
. . . an African man,” she said.
She said the man was controversial businessman Fana Hlongwane.
Mentor admitted more than twice during her testimony that she mixes up Hlongwane’s name with former Gauteng health MEC Brian Hlongwa – who she initially named in her 2017 book as the man she met on the flight. –