PIC gets ready to give away pensioners money 

7 September 2021

The DA notes with interest that the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) proposes to come to some sort of secret settlement with Steinhoff on the basis of a philanthropic motivation of saving the company and a limited number of jobs, all at the expense of the pensioners and members of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF). How easy it is for those taking massive PIC salaries and bonuses to give away the hard-earned money of pensioners.

The PIC must have one, and only one, motivation in this case and that is to recover as much of the R9.35 billion foolishly and perhaps illegally invested in Steinhoff as it can.

This PIC settlement with Steinhoff comes after nearly four years since the December 2017 Steinhoff crash that will likely go down as the biggest corporate fraud to date in the history of South Africa. An event that prompted Christo Weise the then Chairperson of the Steinhoff board to refer to Markus Jooste, the then Steinhoff CEO, as “that F….ng psychopath”. Despite the passing of nearly four years there is yet to be a single person, not even Jooste, apparently the mastermind behind the Steinhoff fraud, who has even been charged let alone convicted and jailed.

In the early stages of the Steinhoff case the Steinhoff board made the Hawks investigation very difficult as they refused to provide a copy of the PWC report into the Steinhoff malfeasance to the Hawks. Even today it seems that a full un-redacted copy of the PWC has not been provided to the Hawks. This to “protect” Steinhoff from civil claims.

Given the very limited information provided by Steinhoff and the lack of any significant progress in holding the Steinhoff executive of the time accountable it seems premature that the PIC is willing to settle secretly with Steinhoff. There is no clear picture as to what assets Jooste has, either in properties like his mansion at Hermanus, perhaps squirrelled away in Swiss bank accounts or perhaps moved into other people’s names and yet the PIC is ready to settle with Steinhoff.

The DA will submit a written question to the Minister of Police to request a report on the progress made by the Hawks into the Steinhoff accounting fraud case.

Issued by Alf Lees, DA Member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, 7 September 2021