Former National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete on Tuesday told the state capture inquiry shocking details of how she ignored a whistleblower report on the controversial arms deal.
Mbete made the admission in an attempt to justify why parliament had also ignored allegations about the Gupta family running amok at state-owned entities.
According to her, parliament was too busy to entertain “rumours”.
It was for this reason that during her time as deputy speaker, she snubbed a report that was pushed under her door by a whistleblower.
Mbete conceded the report contained “scary” details, but said she gave it no attention because it had no one’s name as an author.
“You do not just take something because someone has said it and you plunge it into the space of parliament,” said Mbete.
“I want to tell you, chairperson [deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo], of an occasion when I was deputy speaker. The speaker was away and I was acting speaker. A document was slid under my door. As it turned out, when I read it it was about the famous arms deal. That document had no signature. It had no author.
