Cape Town - Tributes following the death of state capture whistle-blower and former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor have come from her political colleagues and peers at Action SA, the National Freedom Party (NFP) and Cope.
Mentor, 58, whose death was announced on Tuesday morning, had recently stepped away from the political limelight due to health issues experienced as a result of a weight loss operation. She served as an MP from 2002 to 2014.
In a candid interview with the Weekend Argus in June this year, Mentor detailed her health issues and said that she had bariatric surgery to lose weight because of an injury in her leg, but as a result of the hard lockdown she was unable to have follow-up medical inspections on the initial procedure.
She said: “Afterwards, I found that there was a little bit of candidiasis which grew over time and spread throughout the entire system.”
On Thursday, ActionSA president Herman Mashaba said it should not be forgotten that Mentor was the first person to sound the alarm about what is now referred to as state capture, and that she was a true patriot who served her country even in the face of criticism.
NFP parliamentary leader Ahmed Shaik-Emam said: “Mentor was a pioneer in that she went against the grain, and spoke out against her own party with regards to state capture.”
Cope spokesperson Dennis Bloem remembered Mentor as a patriot and corruption buster.
A brief biography written by ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said Mentor was born in Kimberley, Northern Cape.
Her father was the first black African police station commander, based in Welkom, and her mother was a school teacher.
In March 2016, Mentor came forward with claims that the Guptas offered her the public enterprises minister position that was at the time occupied by Barbara Hogan.
Mentor’s evidence before the commission of inquiry into state capture that the Guptas offered to make her a Cabinet minister was found by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo to have “too many unsatisfactory features”.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za