JOHANNESBURG - Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba has dismissed media reports suggesting there was a concerted effort by National Treasury to use R100 billion from the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) to bail out struggling state-owned enterprises including national carrier SAA.
Addressing a media briefing in capital city Pretoria on Tuesday, Gigaba said he had indicated to the PIC board that “to my knowledge, there is no R100 billion that we have requested” from the PIC, which oversees nearly R2 trillion in assets on behalf of government employees.
The National Treasury and PIC officials held a marathon meeting on Tuesday following weekend newspaper reports on the matter. Gigaba said he called the meeting because he wanted to find out from the board if the reports were true, and whether there were indeed attempts to remove PIC chief executive, Dr Dan Matjila, and replace him with a pliable official who would facilitate the capture of Africa’s largest fund manager.
Gigaba said there were “no attempts to dig in” into the pension funds of government employees “for reasons that are unscrupulous”.