Ajay Gupta asked her about stopping SAA’s Johannesburg-Mumbai flights, which she refused, ‘but Malusi Gigaba did so when he replaced Barbara Hogan’.
Lakela Kaunda – ex-president Jacob Zuma’s most trusted aide, who served as deputy director-general in the presidency during his reign – arranged the meeting eight years ago between the Gupta family and former ANC member of parliament Vytjie Mentor where a Cabinet position offer was made at the Saxonwold family compound, the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture heard yesterday.
In her testimony before Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, Mentor, who chaired the parliamentary portfolio committee on public enterprises, told of how she struggled to secure a meeting with Zuma to discuss the implications of government’s stance to ditch the pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) project.
“I had been trying to meet the president to discuss the PBMR and made several attempts as I was concerned about public pronouncements made to close the project,” said Mentor.
“I was concerned about the intellectual property rights which sat with Eskom, having an agreement with Westinghouse – an American electric company,” said Mentor.
Classified in late 1999 as a strategic national project due to its significance and potential in international markets, the PBMR was a public-private partnership comprising the South African government, nuclear industry players and utilities.
According to Mentor, on one Sunday evening in 2010, a call came through from Kaunda confirming the much-awaited meeting she desperately wanted to have with Zuma.
“Lakela said the meeting I wanted to have with the president was going to take place the following day and I had to prepare taking a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg,” Mentor said.
