Vytjie Mentor: Zuma knows me

Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor has disputed President Zuma's claim that he "has nor recollection" of her. File picture: Leon Lestrade

Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor has disputed President Zuma's claim that he "has nor recollection" of her. File picture: Leon Lestrade

Published Mar 16, 2016

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Cape Town - Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor has again rocked the boat with a Facebook post. This time she has disputed President Jacob Zuma’s claim that he “has no recollection” of her.

Mentor said on Wednesday that when Zuma was a deputy president "he sat next to me and spoke through me and with me in caucus each Thursday when Parliament was in session".

On Tuesday Mentor claimed on social media that she had been offered a job as a minister by the president’s friends, the Gupta family, provided she was prepared to “give them” a route to India that was being operated by South Africa Airways.

Mentor’s post on Facebook, which has since been deleted said: “But they had previously asked me to become minister of public enterprises when Barbara Hogan got the chop, provided that I would drop the SAA flight-route to India and give to them. I refused and so I was never made a minister. The President was in another room when they offered me this in Saxonworld”.

 

I chaired the ANC National Parliamentary Caucus when President Zuma was a Deputy President. He sat next to me and spoke...

Posted by Vytjie Mentor on  Wednesday, March 16, 2016

The Guptas have denied Mentor’s claim on Facebook and have dared her to make the submission in a signed affidavit.

While the Presidency released a statement saying that Zuma “has no recollection” of the former MP.

The “president has no recollection of Ms Mentor and is not aware of the alleged incidents in her career that she has reportedly written about on social media”, it said.

Having returned from a holiday in Thailand Mentor wrote in a new Facebook post on Wednesday: “I chaired the ANC National Parliamentary caucus when President Zuma was a deputy president. He sat next to me and spoke through me and with me in caucus each Thursday when Parliament was in session.”

In the same post she later says: “He knew me right from when we arrived from exile. He met me frequently on the ground in the Northern Cape on many occasions.

“I know President Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe will never ever say they have no recollection of me.

“As for the Guptas. I’m not done yet, a lot still needs to be told ... will leave this here for now.”

Mentor’s comments about the Guptas this week were, however, not the first remarks to be made on social networks. It also emerged on Tuesday that she had previously made similar posts on the influence of the Gupta family.

In one post last month, she wrote: “The nuclear deal was meant for the Guptas and the president via his son (Duduzane)”.

“More than half of the (ANC) top six officials and additionals in Luthuli (House) are beneficiaries of the Guptas too, lihambile izwelethu bagithi (our land is gone),” she posted.

Mentor was sacked as committee chairwoman in December 2010 after it emerged that she got Transnet to bankroll a trip to China to join Zuma’s entourage in Beijing. Her first-class travel was at a cost of R138 000.

Transnet paid more than R155 000 for the trip and other amenities from its sponsorship budget.

On Wednesday the Presidency also denied that Mentor had travelled with Zuma to China.

 “By stating that Ms Mentor ‘accompanied’ President Zuma on a state visit to China, the media gives the public an incorrect impression of a status similar to that of ministers or deputy ministers who receive direct formal invitations from the President to accompany him on state visits, and who then join him on all official engagements during the visit as members of the official delegation.”

IOL, African News Agency and The Star

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