‘Ajay offered me a job’
|Published
TESTIFY: Vytjie Mentor. Photo: NOKUTHULA MBATHA TESTIFY: Vytjie Mentor. Photo: NOKUTHULA MBATHA
Vytjie Mentor says Ajay Gupta offered her a ministerial position if she helped shut down the South African Airways (SAA) route from Johannesburg to India.
The former ANC MP was giving testimony at the State Capture Inquiry on Monday.
It has been alleged the Gupta family used its relationship with former president Jacob Zuma to score business deals with state-owned enterprises worth billions.
Mentor gave details about how an assistant for Zuma, Laleka Kaunda, organised the meeting between her and Zuma.
She was told her meeting arrangements would be done by Atul Gupta.
She said she was picked up from OR Tambo Airport by two Guptas and was taken to the Gupta family’s Sahara offices where she met Ajay.
Mentor said she was shocked when she was taken to the Gupta compound in Saxonworld.
She told the inquiry she was offered the post of Minister of Public Enterprises by Ajay if she helped stop SAA’s route from Mumbai, India,
to Johannesburg.
She said Ajay told her the family had a company, Jet airlines, that would take over the route. Ajay had told her Zuma had plans to reshuffle his Cabinet and that then Minister of Public Enterprises Barbara Hogan would be fired, said Mentor.
“He said if I agreed to facilitate that, then I could become the Minister of Public Enterprises in the near future. That startled me,” she said.
Mentor was called to testify on Monday based on her 2016 claim, which she posted on Facebook, that she was offered a job as minister by one of the Gupta brothers at their compound in Saxonworld.
She claimed Zuma was at the Gupta’s Saxonworld compound as she was offered the job.
She alleged Zuma later walked in after she rejected the offer.
The inquiry continues on Tuesday.