The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) on Saturday accused Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba of launching a fresh assault on the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and its CEO Dan Matjila, and raised the possibility of withdrawing the PIC's investment mandate.
On Friday, Gigaba released a media statement on the politicisation of the PIC amid fears that he plans to dip into government pension funds to rescue struggling state-owned enterprises (SoEs).
This latest assault came in the wake of a relentless and concerted campaign to destabilise the PIC to find any justifiable grounds to replace its executive leadership, Fedusa general secretary Dennis George said.
“We must remind South Africa that Gigaba has been one of the central architects of the state capture project since November 2010 when he was appointed minister of public enterprises.
"In this portfolio Gigaba was instrumental in the systematic removal of competent, independent boards of (SoEs) in their entirety, and replacing board members with Gupta-linked directors who operationalised the wholesale looting of our [SoE].
"The most prominent examples of this repurposing of (SoE) boards are Transnet, Eskom and Denel,” George said.
Fedusa and its public sector affiliates – the Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union of South Africa (Hospersa), the Public Servants Association (PSA), Suid Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie (SAOU), and the South African Parastatals and Tertiary Union (Saptu) – had no reason to believe that Gigaba's latest intervention, an instruction to the PIC and its board to conduct "a forensic investigation into any concerns of irregularities at the asset manager" was made in good faith or to ensure "transparency and further build confidence in the institution", as he claimed.
As Home Affairs minister from 2014, Gigaba had continued to provide members of the politically connected "Gupta empire preferential treatment that allowed them to loot public institutions by expeditiously naturalising their South African citizenship", George said.
"His modus operandi as a cabinet minister is clear – secure control over state wealth by chronically weakening the governance and operational structures of targeted institutions, weed out skilled professionals, shake down regulations to the advantage of ulterior forces, and then secure loyal governance and decision-making structures to operationalise his plan.”
A forensic investigation "into any concerns of irregularities" was an undefined, open-ended tool that "political sycophants like Gigaba can abuse to remove the guardians of our members’ pension funds".
"We are observing his disingenuous modus operandi at the PIC with great alarm. Since 15 September 2017, three special PIC board meetings have been called by him or his deputy Sifiso Buthelezi, who is also the chairman of the PIC board.”
The frequency of these special board meetings was highly irregular, if not unprecedented, in the history of the PIC and they sought to deal with any number of spurious allegations against Matjila and the PIC board.
But on each occasion, the PIC and Matjila had been exonerated by the board itself or by internal investigative processes that it had commissioned to test the veracity of such allegations.
Fedusa would urgently consult all its structures and other trade union federations such as the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu) and Cosatu over the next few days to propose that organised labour review and possibly withdraw the investment mandate the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) had with the PIC.
The GEPF was the biggest public sector client of the PIC with more than R1.67 trillion of the GEPF’s assets invested and managed by the PIC in terms of the existing investment mandate.
"Our preliminary view is that there is no obligation in law for the GEPF to retain the PIC as the exclusive manager of these assets.
"The GEPF can look at alternatives in the private sector but we will seek proper legal advice on these options to help us take the most responsible decision.
"The proposal to review and possibly withdraw this investment mandate is in no way a vote of no confidence in the PIC or its leadership.
"It is part of our efforts to protect the asset manager against unwarranted political interference by Gigaba and to protect the pensions and savings of public sector workers and beneficiaries against looting.
"We accept that this is an extreme measure. However, we believe that if we fail to act now the pension savings of our members will be plundered with impunity,” George said.