I did not discuss Guptas with Mentor: Duarte

ANC Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte says she never met former ANC Member of Parliament Vytjie Mentor to discuss any matter except in relation to her injured leg.

Mentor testified at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture that she had discussed details of her meeting with the Gupta family at their Saxonwold home where she was offered the Public Enterprises Minister post in 2010.

Duarte was responding to journalists’ questions in Cape Town on Wednesday after she briefed them on the ANC’s position on the appointment of Tito Mboweni as Finance Minister.

Some of the questions Duarte had to respond to included allegations made against various senior ANC officials including herself at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.

She says, ” The fact that a person’s name is mentioned by another person does not mean that person is corrupt. I think we must be cautious about that. I never met Vytjie Mentor on any matter except her broken leg. This does not mean I am corrupt, and nor does it mean that Vytjie Mentor is mismanaging facts. She said what she said.”