Holy cow! Vytjie apologises after name mix up

Kaunda Selisho

Nearly two months after she mistakenly identified a key player in her testimony at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor has apologised to Fana Hlongwane.

According to her testimony during the second week of the commission, Mentor testified that Fana Hlongwane was present when she met with former president Jacob Zuma.

While she maintains the man with Zuma at a meeting she attended was businessperson Hlongwane, it was pointed out that she had previously named Brian Hlongwa in a book she wrote.

She detailed a meeting with Zuma and two people she identified as “Indian looking”.

She continued to testify that Zuma asked her if he could introduce her to “his chairman”, whom she identified as Hlongwane.

But inquiry chair and Deputy Chief Justice Ray Zondo questioned why, in Mentor’s book No Holy Cows, she had mentioned Hlongwa rather than Hlongwane.

Mentor answered that this was a mistake she could not explain, except to say that both the businessperson and ANC politician had been in the media, and that she had mixed up the surnames – mistakenly believing that Hlongwane’s name was Brian and Hlongwa’s Fana.

She was also questioned on why, in her interview with then public protector Thuli Madonse- la, Mentor didn’t mention Hlongwane or Hlongwa.

Mentor has since issued an apology through her lawyers, Webber Wentzel, which states that she “unfortunately erroneously referred to a party in the commission’s proceedings”.

A lawyers’ letter seen by The Citizen states how she incorrectly recalled being introduced to Fana Hlongwane by Duduzane Zuma on an Emirates flight to Dubai, in her written statements and oral presentation.