Exclusive / South Africa targets political figures to chair Africa’s biggest fund

The finance ministry declined to address specific candidates, pointing to Godongwana’s statement that a new board will be appointed in consultation with the cabinet, adding that the PIC carries a “dual mandate of delivering commercial performance while safeguarding public interest.”

Godlimpi chairs the ANC’s sub-committee on economic transformation and aligns with efforts to direct pension assets toward state industrial policy. Mohai, a former provincial finance executive now in the planning ministry, offers administrative continuity.

The PIC governance crisis was triggered by a confidential audit from PwC into a loan deal for Lanseria Airport. The auditors found valuation errors that led to the PIC overpaying to settle a dispute over company shares. When Dlamini, the PIC CEO, ordered the investigation, a whistleblower accused him of launching it without board approval, leading to his suspension. Masondo used the PwC findings last month to refer the deal to the asset recovery unit of the police before stepping down.

South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation, custodian of $200 billion in civil servant pensions, is once again in the dock. A PwC audit detonated the board, suspended the CEO and forced Godongwana to hunt for a new chair. His short list – two ministers outside the National Treasury – breaks the convention of handing the gavel to the deputy finance minister.

Purists will cry foul. An independent inquiry into the PIC urged an independent, private sector chair to insulate the PIC from political meddling. Some will see Godongwana’s move as backsliding. But the harder truth is that state pension managers in emerging economies cannot operate in a vacuum.

The PIC is not CalPERS. It sits in a country throttled by crumbling infrastructure and anaemic growth. Pretending that $200 billion of domestic savings can be managed as a neutral portfolio, detached from policy, is fantasy. Malaysia’s EPF and Nigeria’s sovereign wealth authority face the same dilemma: either channel capital into roads, power plants and industrial committees or watch economies stagnate.

That does not excuse sloppy governance — the Lanseria fiasco shows the cost of weak controls. But it explains why Godongwana is resisting calls to parachute in a private sector heavyweight. For Pretoria, political alignment is the lever through which pension assets are mobilised for national priorities.

The PIC will never be a passive allocator of capital. It is, and will remain, a policy instrument. The challenge is to build guardrails that prevent abuse while recognizing that in emerging markets, pension funds are part of the development toolkit – not detached financial machines.

The Democratic Alliance opposes political appointments to the board. Earlier this month, the DA proposed legislation seeking to ban political office bearers, and anyone who held political office in the preceding three years, from serving on the PIC board. It said the move will “depoliticize the PIC board and protect the pensions of South Africans.”

The OECD and the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds mandate operational independence and insulation of national savings from short-term government fiscal or policy pressures.

The PIC is an influential player in South African capital markets, holding minority stakes in blue- chip companies such as Anglo American, MTN Group and Absa, with Godowanga saying it is “systemically important”.

It holds over 10% of the total market capitalization of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and underwrites the bulk of Pretoria’s sovereign debt, meaning that any governance issues directly moves asset pricing across Africa’s deepest capital market.