Patrick Dlamini, the suspended head of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), has accused an anonymous group of whistleblowers of concocting a complaint against him that was “patently designed to cause instability to the PIC”.
Dlamini lodged papers for an urgent hearing in the high court in Pretoria, due to take place on Tuesday, in which he takes aim at the PIC’s board for suspending him based on “nothing more than speculation and the say-so of an unidentified and unidentifiable [group]”.
His 55-page affidavit is notable, not least for the fact that this is his first public attack on the 26-page whistleblower complaint that led to his “precautionary suspension” on July 13 and proved to be a catalyst for a much wider boardroom implosion at Africa’s largest fund manager.
Subsequently, the entire PIC board quit, with the directors at war over how to respond to the whistleblowers.
It also laid bare political tensions between finance minister Enoch Godongwana, who supported Dlamini, and deputy finance minister David Masondo who, until his resignation last week, chaired the board that suspended the CEO.
This leadership crisis at the PIC, which manages R3.8-trillion on behalf of 1.7-million civil servants, has now rippled deeper. There is no board, five of the top six positions are filled by acting executives, and there are no permanent appointees heading up the listed investments, fixed income, and unlisted investments portfolios.
While a new interim board is set to be...
Executive Summary What’s new: The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of an outsider’s qui tam action under the False Claims Act, outlining a potential path to dismissal where a relator lacks ins...