Johannesburg - Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor on Tuesday revealed that the governing party's former secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and his deputy at the time, Jessie Duarte, failed to take seriously her claims that the Guptas offered her a ministerial position.
Mentor told the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo that during the meeting Mantashe simply walked away, saying he had another meeting to attend.
Duarte, according to Mentor, did not appear interested in what the former portfolio committee on public enterprises chairperson had to relay to her party at its headquarters at Luthuli House in Johannesburg.
The Guptas, former president Jacob Zuma's friends, allegedly offered Mentor then public enterprises minister Barbara Hogan's job and told her that there was a looming cabinet reshuffle.
“I reported the ministerial offer, the demand that I cancel SA Airways' India route and the looming reshuffle to Parliament's intelligence committee,” she said.
In May 2016, she then reported the matter to the Durbanville police station where senior officers told her there were no trusted cops to probe her complaint.
A statement was taken by senior police officers in Cape Town but she only saw the statement for the first time on Monday, two years after it was taken.
Senior Western Cape police officers sent her from pillar to post when she demanded it back.
Instead, Hawks officer Mandla Mtolo demanded that she remove references to Zuma as this made her complaint untouchable by the unit.
After Mtolo laid his hands on the statement, he refused to hand it over to Mentor until the commission intervened.
Mentor also dismissed Zuma's claims that he did not know her, saying they attended ANC caucus and political committee meetings with him for nearly five years.
An emotional Mentor also told the commission she felt unsafe at the hotel the commission booked for her after inexplicable incidents of tampering with her door.
Mentor will complete her testimony today and former Government Communication and Information System boss Themba Maseko will be the next witness.
Mantashe said Mentor was lying.
“When Vytjie Mentor was an MP my deputy was Thandi Modise not Jessie Duarte. So that is lying under oath,” he said.