Pension Protection Bill to Prohibit Politics at PIC

Statement by Dr Mark Burke MP – DA Spokesperson on Finance:

For over a decade, the PIC has stumbled from scandal to scandal.

At the heart of this chaos is a refusal to appoint non-political directors and a chairperson who is not an ANC Deputy Minister.
Today, the DA submitted its Pension Protection Bill to Parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Services.

We intend to table the Bill shortly after processing their feedback.
Under this short and decisive Bill, an independent panel, not a politician, will appoint the directors of the PIC. The chairperson will not be a Communist Party Deputy Minister, but an apolitical person appointed by other non political persons.

This Bill will implement the recommendations made by Judge Lex Mpati as far back as 2020. Recommendations that have until now been ignored.

Specifically, the bill will require the following:

The chairperson will no longer be a Deputy Minister. In fact, no person holding a political office or having held a political office in the three years preceding their appointment will be permitted to serve as a director.

The Standing Committee on Finance will be responsible for the appointment of a Selection Panel for shortlisting non-executive directors. The panel will consist of persons who are politically independent and appointed on the basis of merit.

The Selection Panel will be responsible for proposing suitable non-executive directors to the Minister of Finance based on merit and the skills required.

The Minister may reject a candidate director, but may not appoint a candidate who has not been proposed by the Panel.

The executive directors will be appointed by the Board, not the Minister.

The Board will elect its own Chairperson from amongst its non-executive members.

The DA’s Bill is simple. It makes sense. If it weren’t for the desire to politically capture everything, it would have happened a long time ago.

Pension investments are supposed to be boring. They’re not supposed to be political. The Pension Protection Bill seeks to rectify an unacceptable situation that has cost public servants billions.