The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) notes the appointment of the Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Mr. Seiso Mohai, as the Chairperson of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) as well as other Board members.
Deputy Minister Mohai, a humble and seasoned public servant, will provide badly needed authority and stability to the PIC, the largest investment fund in South Africa and the continent. Mr. Mohai brings decades of leadership, tertiary qualifications and most importantly, a record of standing up to state capture and corruption, irrespective of the personal cost to himself.
Deputy Minister Mohai played an instrumental role in ensuring the 5th Parliament adopted the PIC Amendment Act in 2019, against massive covert and overt resistance from many vested and powerful state capture interests. The PIC Amendment Act acting upon demands from COSATU, workers, pensioners, and the recommendations of the Judge Lex Mpati Commission of Enquiry into the PIC; introduced some of the most comprehensive anti-corruption and transparency legislative amendments.
It is critical that the remaining appointments to the PIC Board, in particular those selected by the depositors and workers, be expedited to provide stability to the PIC and most importantly to put in place the necessary oversight to ensure that workers and pensioners’ hard-earned wages are protected at all times.
COSATU offers its support to the new Board, including the soon to be confirmed depositor and worker representatives. We will equally insist that they move with speed to strengthen governance, oversight, transparency and accountability measures at the PIC, in particular complying in full with the PIC Act’s requirements for all investments, listed and unlisted, be publicly disclosed fully on its website and submitted to Parliament, Treasury and the depositors annually. Non-compliance with this fundamental legal requirement can no longer be tolerated.
The Federation will similarly insist that the PIC continue all investigations instituted by the previous Board into alleged corruption and state capture. We urge the President, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, to task the Special Investigations Unit, the Auditor-General and the Hawks to institute a comprehensive investigation of all PIC investments to ensure the cancer of corruption and state capture is fully exorcised from the PIC.
COSATU notes the various discussions taking place in the public discourse about the next phase of the PIC’s legislative reforms. The PIC invests more than R3.6 trillion worth of public servants’ pensions and workers’ unemployment and occupational injuries and diseases’ funds. The Federation will insist that any proposed legislative amendments strengthen the 2019 Amendment Act’s landmark anti-corruption, transparency, accountability and developmental provisions. We will never allow these historic, progressive and anti-corruption provisions to be reversed or watered down.
The Federation will ramp up its efforts to ensure that the PIC not only protects workers and pensioners’ monies, but also uses these to benefit workers, pensioners and the working class at large. The days of some PIC officials, tenderpreneurs and politicians treating the PIC as their personal slush fund must now end and those who have looted be charged, prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned and their assets attached.
Issued by COSATU
Matthew Parks (COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator)
Mobile: 082 785 0687
Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za