Publications
Partners
Yet another dent was added to former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor’s testimony given before the state capture commission in August last year.
Instead of corroborating her evidence Cope spokesperson Dennis Bloem and an “expert” witness from the department of public works, chief architect Erna Wiese, poked holes in Mentor’s testimony when they took the stand at the commission on Thursday.
In her August 2018 testimony before the Zondo commission Mentor said, following a 2016 meeting with the Guptas and former President Jacob Zuma in which she was offered the position of public enterprises minister, she had disclosed this to a few members of the portfolio committee on intelligence.
She identified the members she had shared this “confidential information” with as Hlengiwe Mgabadeli, Bloem and chairperson of the committee Siyabonga Cwele.
When confronted with the evident that Cwele could not have been the chairperson of any committee since he had already been appointed intelligence minister on September 25 2008 until May 10 2009 and after the elections in 2009 was appointed minister of state security until 2014, Mentor backtracked on a number of the things she had said in her initial testimony.
She conceded that this part of her testimony was wrong, and added that “I was going to correct that later when I finalise my statement”.
She also reneged on the fact that she had spoken to Bloem and the other committee members in 2016 instead alleging that she had raised “a need to address the Gupta issue” on an earlier date.
When asked by evidence leader advocate Zinhle Buthelezi whether Mentor had ever confided in him and other committee members on “the Gupta issue” in 2010 Bloem said: “I can’t remember that. I must be honest, I can’t remember.”
He did confirm, however, that Mentor called him in 2016 and requested that they meet in a lounge where she informed him of a meeting that “happened during the winter recess”, saying that she had met one of the Gupta brothers at Saxonwold.
“She informed me that at the meeting the brother had offered her the position of public enterprises minister and she explained that she was “deeply upset by the offer”.
Bloem, however, said unlike her testimony before the commission – in which she claimed that Zuma was present in the Gupta house during the meeting with the Gupta brother – Mentor had told him that she only met Zuma on her way out as she was leaving the house.
“She told me that she informed Zuma of the offer and he had said that she shouldn’t bother herself about the matter,” said Bloem.
He also added that she had told him that she was accompanied to her car by the Gupta brother and Zuma. However, in her testimony last year she said only Zuma walked her to her car.
Bloem also revealed that he had sat on this “confidential information” until Mentor and former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas went public with it. Jonas testified that he had also been offered a ministerial post by the Guptas.
“Out of respect to Mentor and that we had served on the same committee for so long I kept the information confidential. As soon as she and Jonas went public with it, I went to the Brooklyn Police Station and opened a case of corruption and treason against the former president and the Gupta brothers,” said Bloem.
During her testimony before the commission on Thursday, Wiese – a chief architect called in to assist with the on location inspection of the Gupta properties – testified that Mentor last year gave a detailed description of numerous features of the Gupta property but struggled to pick out the property from the houses in the vicinity.
However she testified that Mentor eventually picked out the property.
In her testimony in 2018 she had described it as having had at least four or five structures in the property on inspections this was not the case.
Wiese concluded that following the inspection – which she and her team had been tasked to do by the commission’s legal team along with Mentor – they “could not conclusively find any of the features they were briefed to look out for at house as described in Mentor’s testimony”.
She added that to make conclusions beyond a doubt the commission would need a team of specialists which her department did not have.
