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President Zuma and Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma

Johannesburg – Officials from the presidency reportedly held a three-hour meeting with President Jacob Zuma’s estranged wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, shortly before the story of her alleged involvement in the poisoning of the president broke.According to the Sunday Times, the meeting was held at the five-star Oyster Box Hotel in Umhlanga Rocks about two weeks ago.

A hotel source said that five officials had met with her and that the meeting lasted more than three hours.

Friends and family have meanwhile closed ranks around the exiled wife, who in turn refuses to answer questions. However, a politically connected Durban North businessman said although Ntuli-Zuma had been ousted from the inner family circle she was not likely to turn on the President as she still received support from him.

It was reported last week that Zuma’s office dismissed as gossip a report that Ntuli-Zuma poisoned him.

“It’s based on total speculation and gossip,” presidential spokesperson Mac Maharaj said.

“I’m not commenting any further . . . I don’t comment on gossip.”

According to the original newspaper article, three sources had confirmed that Zuma fell ill and was hospitalised in June last year. During a trip to the US two months later he learnt he had been poisoned.

He apparently had the diagnosis confirmed by Russian doctors in August. At the time, the international relations department said Zuma would hold low-key meetings and use the time to rest during this visit to Russia.

The newspaper reported that Ntuli-Zuma moved out of Nkandla in January and is living in Durban North with her three children. She is still entitled to benefits from the presidency’s spousal office as she and Zuma are not divorced. Zuma’s brother, Michael, confirmed Ntuli-Zuma had moved out “not long ago”.

According to the article, Zuma got so sick during June last year that he began to hallucinate and spoke about his late mother as if she were still alive.

No comment was available by yesteray afternoon from the Presidency following a Sunday Sun report that one of President Jacob Zuma’s wives, Ntuli-Zuma, had been ousted from the spousal office.

Earlier, the Sunday Sun published an article in which it claimed that Ntuli-Zuma, commonly known as MaNtuli, had been excluded from the spousal office following tension in her marriage.

Ntuli-Zuma was previously in the news early last year following a court case involving a Tanzanian man accused of threatening her with a claim that Zuma was not the father of one of her children.

In late April 2014, the Durban Regional Court fined Steven John Masunga R10,000 or three months in prison for having tried to force Ntuli-Zuma to arrange a business meeting for him with her husband by sending her smses falsely claiming to be the father of her child, and falsely accused her of trying to kill her bodyguard.

In November 2010, Ntuli-Zuma also made headlines after settling a Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration labour dispute involving a domestic worker who had claimed she had been unfairly dismissed.

Previously, in June 2010, Zuma’s nephew Khulubuse Zuma issued a statement in which he distanced the Zuma family from unconfirmed allegations – published by the Ilanga newspaper at that time – that Ntuli-Zuma had had an affair with a bodyguard.

“The president’s family is united in distancing itself from these malicious reports about the first lady Mama [Nompumelelo] MaNtuli,” he said at the time.
Zuma is also married to Sizakele Khumalo, Bongiwe Ngema and Thobeka Mabhija.

He was previously married to current AU Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, whom he divorced in 1998, and Kate Mantsho, who committed suicide in 2000. – Sapa