By Loni Prinsloo.
Deputy finance minister said he’ll submit a formal response defending his position as chairman of the Public Investment Corp when its board meets next week to discuss recent turmoil at the state pension-fund manager.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has called a meeting for July 27 at which the PIC’s non-executive directors and his deputy, David Masondo, face a shareholder vote for removal, News24 reported on Tuesday. The PIC is 100% state-owned and Godongwana acts as the government’s shareholder representative.
“I will make my full representations, as requested by the minister at the shareholder’s general meeting,’ Masondo said in an emailed response to questions from Bloomberg.
The PIC is Africa’s biggest money manager, with about R3.6 trillion ($219 billion) under management. It’s been rocked by upheaval over the past week after Masondo suspended Chief Executive Officer Patrick Dlamini amid a probe into allegations of impropriety raised in a whistleblower report. The nation’s financial regulator has announced an investigation into governance at the fund.
At least six non-executive directors of the PIC’s 11-member board have resigned in the past week, including four who quit on Tuesday, Johannesburg-based news website Currency reported.
Godongwana and Masondo — the top two officials in the finance ministry — have been at odds over the decision to suspend Dlamini, the handling of a report that he ordered into a controversial investment in a Johannesburg airport, and a whistleblower tip-off that followed.
Dlamini was suspended eight months after ordering an investigation by PwC into a Black economic-empowerment deal linked to an investment in Lanseria, an airport on the northern outskirts of Johannesburg. The report exposed alleged wrongdoing by members of the PIC’s staff, the people said.
The removal of Masondo from the post of chairman would be unprecedented in the history of the PIC, the publication said. South African law requires the board be chaired by a deputy minister within the so-called economic cluster of ministries, which include finance, trade and mineral resources.
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