DA to file HRC complaint against PIC over racist reaction to ABSA appointment

4 April 2022

The DA will be filing a Human Rights Commission (HRC) complaint against the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) for what we believe to be a racist attack on the appointment of ABSA’s new CEO, Arrie Rautenbach.

Last week the PIC suggested that Rautenbach is unsuitable to be the CEO of ABSA, not because he lacks expertise and qualifications, but because he is white.

This statement is racist, and its release an abuse of public power. The HRC complaint is an attempt to call the PIC and its management to account.

The DA rejects the categorisation of people by race, and the use of public power of such categorisation in determining rights and obligations. We believe that apartheid injustices can be redressed without using apartheid-era racial categorisation.

If South Africa is to build a capable state and achieve high levels of economic growth, the policy of reserving positions in public and private institutions based on race and other immutable characteristics must be abandoned.

While many of the laws on the statute books today are based on the ANC’s racial national agenda, the conduct of the PIC has gone beyond even these laws. The PIC is a creature of statute, and not a subcommittee of the ANC, and must act accordingly.

Issued by Cilliers Brink, DA Spokesperson, 4 April 2022