Whilst Parliament Gently Sleeps

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

The DA notes the dramatic suspension of the Public Investment Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer Patrick Dlamini and Chief Investment Officer August van Heerden.

This follows a month of competing whistleblower reports against both Dlamini and PIC Chairperson Dr David Masondo, as well as deafening silence from Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance.

The public has every right to be concerned. The ANC’s David Masondo, Chairperson and Deputy Finance Minister faces his own whistleblower allegations and a tenure marked by failed investments. Then there’s the five suspended executives in the last two years.

In moments of crisis, it is Parliament’s constitutional duty to call officials to account. To help the nation know what’s happening. It has thus far failed dismally. Parliament’s Finance Committee has not only neglected to demand the PIC explain its boardroom fighting, it hasn’t held a single in-person hearing with the PIC in the past year.

Bizarrely, two months ago, ANC finance MPs unanimously fought for the PIC to be allowed to spend more money on unlisted investments and for this recommendation to be included in an official report.

All of this reeks of a captured institution experiencing a complex civil war between competing factions of looters, and ethical public servants. All the while, ANC MPs are either enablers or intentional idlers.

There is no longer only smoke at the PIC, the fire is blazing. The casualties are mounting. Parliament urgently needs to call in-person, in camera hearings over multiple days to hear what the board and executives tasked with investing public pension money are doing.