Nothing can save ANC come 2019, not even Cyril, says Vytjie Mentor

Former ANC MP and self-proclaimed Gupta whistle-blower Vytjie Mentor On Sunday morning posted a Facebook post asking her followers to read an interview with her in the Sunday Times.

The Q&A  in the paper with her featured her views on state capture and the future of the ANC. She said that the Gupta emails still left much to be exposed.

She added that not even the election of Cyril Ramaphosa would be enough to save the ANC.

“They will still lose in 2019. And I think they should, actually.”

She said that the best way to end corruption would be to use a constituent assembly “comprising all stakeholders including civil society … a new electoral act” to elect the president directly and a “strong constituency-based electoral system”.

Mentor also expressed regret for not having fought even harder against the culture of corruption in the ANC, particularly the fact that MPs such as Bathabile Dlamini were allowed to stay in positions of power in the ANC despite being convicted of fraud in the Travelgate scandal.

Mentor had earlier said on Facebook that she recently had a health scare and that lying in bed in the morning in pain “has become a familiar thing” for her.

The details of her condition were not made clear, but she uploaded images of herself on Friday looking fine at a wine estate in the Western Cape.

She captioned the photos: “A well-deserved time-out after some health-scare.”

On Saturday, however, she wrote: “Laying in pain in the wee-hours of the morning has become a familiar thing, but in Faith we know that Hope and Help from above both come in the morning. I know my Redeemer lives and that this too shall pass.”

She received many well-wishes from her followers. This is not the first time that her health has been reported on, as there were also reports about her being admitted to hospital last year.

Mentor was in the news again on Sunday after a Sunday report by City Press revealed that, according to case files they had access to, “a Hawks detective struggled to get Mentor to tell him the exact dates, times and itinerary of her trip to Johannesburg to meet President Jacob Zuma, during which she landed up at the Guptas’ Saxonwold compound”.

“The detective asked for detailed information about the car that picked her up from the airport, a copy of her invitation letter from the presidency, names of those present in the meetings she attended and who said what.”

She allegedly failed to provide these details despite many requests.

Last year Mentor threatened to take the Hawks to court if they continued delaying state capture investigations.

Mentor wrote that she was offered the position of public enterprises minister by one of the Guptas at their Saxonwold home in 2010, an offer she declined.

She last year reportedly lodged a complaint against the Hawks with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) over what she alleged were unacceptable delays.

She claimed that in June 2016 the Hawks sent an officer to her Cape Town home to take down another statement, but the investigator – who she said introduced himself only as Mtolo – asked her to remove the information implicating Zuma because the National Prosecuting Authority would refuse to prosecute.

According to IOL, “He asked her not to mention the names of the ministers and said she should instead should use the names of the accounting officers, such as directors-general and board members.”

She last year reportedly said she never heard from the Hawks again.

She declared that “some of the details from her first affidavit had been altered and that was the reason the Hawks had been ignoring her”.

“He scratched out certain things that were in my first affidavit,” she was quoted as saying.

The Hawks, however, have also been complaining since last year that they were trying for months to get information from Mentor.

The Hawks’ spokesperson, Hangwani Mulaudzi, said he had phoned Mentor personally after they supposedly couldn’t find her, and she had then told him she’d been in hospital. Mulaudzi denied they had asked her to remove any information implicating Zuma and any ministers.

He told IOL there had been no basis for Mentor to report the Hawks to Ipid because she had not availed herself to investigators. Mentor accused the Hawks of lying, saying they were contacting her because she had lodged a complaint with Ipid. She also accused the Hawks of illegally bugging her phone.

“They have the propensity to listen to people without getting a judge’s order. I know when a cellphone is being listened to,” she reportedly said.