EFF STATEMENT ON WORKERS’ GENUINE CONCERN ABOUT THE DIRECTION OF THE PIC.
Friday, September 22, 2017
The Economic Freedom Fighters notes the genuine concerns of workers’ organizations, the Congress of South Africa’s Trade Unions (COSATU) and the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) over the direction of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) under the current political leadership. The PIC is the sole asset management company that is mandated with managing the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Commissioner Pension Fund.
Since the arrival Malusi Gigaba as a Gupta deployed Minister of Finance and Sfiso Buthelezi as Deputy Minister and Chairperson of the PIC Board, there are constant attempts to redirect the funds under PIC’s management into bailing out failing State institutions and into illegitimate deals. When presenting a weak and lousy recovery plan of the badly governed South African Airways, Malusi Gigaba illustrated that he will source R6 billion from the PIC. When considering to dispose of the State’s assets in Telkom, Malusi Gigaba approached the PIC to purchase these despite the fact that this is not in the investment mandate and policy of the PIC.
As part of these attempts to capture the PIC, the recently appointed Deputy Chairperson of the PIC, Xolani Mkhwanazi has been at the forefront of a witch hunt against the PIC Chief Executive Officer Daniel Matjila. The State Security Agency, though Minister of Intelligence has been hounding the PIC CEO with the intention of removing him from the Corporation and replace him with a puppet who will steal workers’ pension funds.
As a genuine and well-intentioned reaction, COSATU said on the 20th of September 2017 that “the Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba must be stripped off all the unilateral powers that allow him to appoint board members of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), with immediate effect”. This is a genuine call, which must be supported by all sensible South Africans because Malusi Gigaba has demonstrated an insatiable appetite to invade and wreck the PIC in the same he did with TRANSNET, ESKOM and DENEL when he was Minister of Public Enterprises. Workers’ silence in those State-Owned Companies led to their total capture by the Guptas and ruin to almost the point of no return.