Outgoing PIC CEO Abel Sithole admitted that the asset manager did not implement its own disciplinary committee’s recommendation to fire company secretary Bongani Mathebula.
It’s also not clear from the PIC’s evasive responses whether it implemented the Mphati Commission’s recommendation that the PIC Board examine Mathebula’s reinstatement. The PIC potentially misled parliament earlier in the day when it stated that all the Mphati Commission’s recommendations had been implemented.
Should they exist, the DA is demanding the board meeting minutes where it formally implements the Mphati commission’s recommendation to examine whether Mathebula’s reinstatement was sound.
The PIC also admitted, after probing, that it chose not to fire Mathebula based on the outcome of a forensic investigation by JGL Forensic Services implicating Mathebula in wrongdoing.
A Sunday Times investigation found Mathebula broke the PIC’s own rules to recommend Lerato Nage to the board of Daybreak Foods.
The reporting estimates that R150 million flowed from the now bankrupt Daybreak under Nage’s chairmanship to companies of Pule Malahlela. Mathebula is also the former business partner of Malahlela. This was allegedly done using fictitious or inflated invoices, double invoices and false invoices for work not done.
The DA will continue pursuing accountability at the PIC and Daybreak. Public pensioner money cannot be looted without consequence, killing companies and jobs in the process.