“We needed diversity. At that stage we did not know their other businesses. What we know today, we didn’t know then,” he said, adding that the party only clicked to the family’s shenanigans when it landed a private wedding plane at Waterkloof Air Force Base in 2013 and when Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula (then serving in a different portfolio) remarked during an ANC NEC meeting that he had been told of his deployment by the family. As the family’s hold over the state became clearer, the ANC did not tell its MP’s not to ask questions or “stop thinking”, said Mantashe.