Mentor joined Zuma delegation – first class – on trip to China

15 March 2016 - 22:02 By TMG Digital
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Vytjie Mentor. File photo.
Vytjie Mentor. File photo.
Image: Trevor Samson

The former ANC parliamentarian that President Jacob Zuma says he cannot remember‚ got into trouble for accompanying him on an overseas trip in 2010.

Vytjie Mentor‚ a former African National Congress caucus chairperson and party MP‚ dropped a bombshell by saying that she was offered a job as Cabinet Minister by the Gupta family — when Zuma was in another room of their mansion.

In response the Presidency issued a statement on Tuesday evening saying: “President Jacob Zuma has no recollection of Ms Mentor. He is therefore unable to comment on any alleged incident in her career.”

But in 2010‚ the Sunday Times reported the ANC was investigating Mentor after she got Transnet to pay R150‚000 for her to join President Zuma’s state visit to China in August.

Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba revealed in reply to a parliamentary question in December that year that the actual cost of the trip was actually just over R155‚000‚ which Transnet paid from its sponsorships budget‚ Sowetan reported.

Most of this amount‚ R138‚000‚ was spent on first class plane tickets for Mentor. Transnet also paid about R11‚000 for Mentor to spend one night in the swanky Portsman Ritz Carlton Hotel in Shanghai.

Although the ANC removed Mentor as chairperson of the public enterprises portfolio committee two weeks prior to this admission‚ Gigaba still claimed that the committee would benefit from her enhanced understanding of Chinese state-owned enterprises.

Mentor was one of four chairpersons of parliamentary committees axed by the ANC in November 2010. A report at the time speculated her ousting was because she “turned up uninvited” on the president’s China trip.

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