David Masondo, PIC chairperson and deputy finance minister, in a statement made to staff last week, said the board had not been aware that the FSCA had previously requested from PIC management documentation relating to the whistleblower matter, which contained allegations against chief executive Patrick Dlamini.
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Cosatu has said the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) should be disclosing all relevant information regarding its listed and unlisted investments publicly, and such information, “as per the PIC Act,” must be available on its website and in its annual reports.
This was according to Cosatu’s parliamentary coordinator Matthew Parks, who said on Monday that making this information more publicly available would help ensure all PIC investments were made in compliance with its investment mandate and could be subjected to public scrutiny.
“We have noted with deep concern the whistleblower report containing allegations against the PIC’s suspended CEO Patrick Dlamini regarding its investments in Acapulco and Lanseria Airport.
“It is essential every allegation of misconduct or maladministration be subjected to an independent, transparent, and impartial investigation. Equally, no individual should be presumed guilty before the relevant processes have been concluded,” Parks said.
An online search by Business Report showed only limited disclosure of investment performance in the annual report, and no disclosure of what the investments were, other than a description of the asset class in their broadest terms, such as “listed equities.”
Other information about investment performance or the actual investments could not be found on the PIC’s website, or any information about significant changes in the investment portfolio, while the annual report provided was for the 2024/25 financial year, which is now already more than a year old. There was also no sign of the names of the unlisted investments.
Parks was responding to the shock announcement last week that Dlamini had been placed on precautionary suspension over allegations made against him concerning a PIC investment in Lanseria Airport more than a decade ago. A day after the announcement, the Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA) announced it would conduct an investigation into the allegations of governance failures at the PIC.
It has transpired since then that the FSCA had previously tried to investigate governance issues at the PIC but was ignored.
PIC chairman David Masondo, in a statement made to staff last week, said the board had not been aware that the FSCA had previously requested from PIC management documentation relating to the whistleblower matter, which contained allegations against chief executive Patrick Dlamini.
Masondo said there seemed to have been “miscommunication and misunderstanding between the PIC management and FSCA.” He stated that “those earlier requests had not been brought to the attention of either the board or its chairperson.”
“Upon becoming aware of the matter through the Authority's subsequent correspondence, the chairperson immediately responded, furnished the requested documentation, and committed the board's full cooperation with the inquiry,” he said.
He also responded to questions regarding the PIC’s unlisted investments, which had attracted “significant public scrutiny.”
“Many of its transactions examined by the Mpati Commission originated from legacy investments made before the tenure of the current leadership. The PIC currently has investments in 150 unlisted companies, of which 39 legacy investments are undergoing turnaround or distress-management processes,” he said.
He said that while the unlisted investments represented a relatively small portion of the PIC's portfolio, they were significant in rand terms. The entire unlisted portfolio constituted 4.5% of the PIC's assets under management, with distressed and turnaround investments accounting for only 1.7% of the unlisted portfolio, and less than 0.1% of the PIC's total investments.
He said despite these challenges, the PIC had recovered R10 billion of its R19bn debt book and was pursuing legal processes to recover the remaining R9.3bn.
He said the unlisted portfolio had continued to generate value, expanding by 3.6% during the financial year ended March 2026, while the 2022 Unlisted Investments Mandate delivered a 16% internal rate of return, outperforming its benchmark.
“This is a positive trajectory,” said Masondo. Further indication of this was that the GEPF (Government Employee Pension Fund), the PIC’s largest client, on July 6, 2026, uplifted a previous moratorium on direct property portfolio investments, he said.
Parks said calls and attempts by various politicians inside Parliament and government to disband the PIC board were premature and may result in the deliberate collapse of the investigations into the Acapulco and Lanseria Airport investments.
“We welcome the board’s referral of the Acapulco investments to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU). We urge President Cyril Ramaphosa to swiftly issue a proclamation tasking the SIU with the support of the Hawks and the Auditor-General to undertake a comprehensive investigation of all PIC investments. This is key to ensuring the cancer of corruption and state capture is exorcised from it,” said Parks.
BUSINESS REPORT