Johannesburg - In a fresh post on Facebook on Thursday, former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor claimed she has proof that President Jacob Zuma was present at the Gupta family’s Saxonwold home when they offered her the public enterprises minister post.
Mentor dared the controversial family to take her to court over her revelations.
For three days running Mentor has made revelations on Facebook claiming the Guptas offered her the public enterprises minister position that was at the time occupied by Barbara Hogan.
Also read: Guptas offered me a ministerial post, says ex-MP
On Thursday Mentor posted: “The Guptas must go ahead with their threats. I look forward to meeting them in court. I do have a trump card!! I can corroborate my claim. Legal threats don’t scare me. I don’t have money like they do. I have only the TRUTH as my valuable possession. I am a David, they are a Goliath. But you know what? EVERY GOLIATH HAVE THEIR OWN DAVID. I am ready, very ready, SO HELP ME GOD!”
Reacting to her first posts, Zuma said he had no recollection of Mentor. She hit back on Facebook and detailed her encounters with Zuma when he was deputy president.
Read:‘Zuma has no recollection of Vytjie Mentor’
Mentor’s posts read in part: “I sat with him [Zuma] in the ANC’s Political Committee each month too. He is the one whi [sic] was sent by the TOP 6 then to tell me that the ANC has deploted [sic] me to be the Chair of Caucus then. He is the one who introduced me to the ANC Caucus then as a new Chair of Caucus.
“I had a bi-monthly with him in his Tuynhuis Offices then. He knew me right from when he 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.”
In another post on Thursday Mentor said Zuma was in the Gupta’s house when they made the job offer.
“He came in after I rejected the offer. He accompanied me down the 4/5/6 marble (covered) wide stairs at the entrance of the Gupta house to their black twin-cab with heavily black-tainted windows which taking me (sic) me back to the airport. I was on crutches. It was about 5-7 days or so before Barbara Hogan was reshuffled as a Minister of Public Enterprises. The rest I will reveal at the right time.”
Speaking on Talk Radio 702 on Thursday morning Hogan applauded Mentor for having the courage to speak out.
Hogan said she was not surprised by the revelations made by Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas on Wednesday when he confirmed reports that he was offered the post of finance minister by the Guptas last year.
Hogan said she encourages the ANC to “deal with the rot cleverly and decisively”.
She told the radio station that while she was a minister she was pressured to meet with Gupta-linked business Jet Airways, but refused.
Hogan, an anti-apartheid activist and wife of ANC stalwart Ahmed Kathrada, resigned from her cabinet post in 2010.
The controversial Gupta family has refuted claims of job offers made to top ANC leaders at their Saxonwold home.
The family has labelled Jonas’s statement as another political witch hunt by factions within the ruling party. They have also threatened legal action against Mentor.
African News Agency