\u201cMalfeasance\u201d. \u201cDisastrous\u201d. \u201cDisingenuous\u201d. \u201cGross negligence\u201d.<\/p>\n
If there exists a thesaurus of \u201cvery bad things\u201d, it has been lying open on Judge Lex Mpati\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, President Cyril Ramaphosa released Mpati\u2019s long-awaited report<\/a>\u00a0into allegations of corruption and mismanagement at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC).<\/p>\n The 995-page report tears into former PIC boss Dr Dan Matjila and the operation he ran from 2005, first as chief investment officer and then as chief executive from 2014.<\/p>\n Although the report only scratches the surface of a handful of the deals in the PIC\u2019s R2-trillion portfolio, it provides a devastating picture of how public servants\u2019 pensions were managed.<\/p>\n \u201c[T]he PIC was often used as a bailout fund for connected insiders and also a bailout fund for bad investments made by the PIC,\u201d the report states at one point.<\/p>\n For investigative journalists, the report vindicates years of dogged reporting.<\/p>\n You can download the full 995-page report produced by Judge Lex Mpati\u2019s panel here<\/a>. Keep an eye out for some of these deals which amaBhungane helped expose \u2013 and how our reporting has been vindicated.<\/p>\n Independent Newspapers<\/strong>: Our 2013 report on the PIC\u2019s investment led Iqbal Surv\u00e9 to accuse us of being \u201ccontrolled by the CIA\u201d. Re-live that charade here<\/a>. Now the PIC is suing to reclaim its R609-million investment. Read the background here.<\/p>\n S&S<\/strong>: Together with the Mail & Guardian<\/em> we probed S&S Refineries \u2013 a $62.5-million investment in a now-collapsed Mozambican oil refinery introduced by the son of then finance minister Nhlanhla Nene. Read more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ayo Techology Solutions<\/strong>: The commission found the PIC\u2019s R4.3-billion investment was characterized by \u201cmalfeasance\u201d by Iqbal Surv\u00e9\u2019s Sekunjalo Group and \u201cgross negligence\u201d from Dr Dan Matjila and the PIC\u2019s then chief financial officer. Our story unpacked the building blocks of this outrageous gambit here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Erin Energy<\/strong>: The PIC stands to lose $337-million (R5.5-billion) in a disastrous Nigerian oil deal linked to a benefactor of then president Jacob Zuma, Kase Lawal. We blew the whistle on the deal way back, here<\/a> and here<\/a> and tracked its sorry demise here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sagarmatha<\/strong>: Sagarmatha Technologies (aka the \u201cAfrican Unicorn\u201d) was likely to get billions from the PIC in Surv\u00e9\u2019s most ambitious deal. That is, until we cried foul. This story<\/a> heralded the beginning of the end of the Surv\u00e9 empire.<\/p>\n Tosaco<\/strong>: The PIC\u2019s R1.7-billion investment in Total included bullying, R100-million in unexplained transaction fees and an array of politically-connected names. Read more here<\/a>.\u00a0[\/sidebarContentStory]<\/p>\n When Ramaphosa launched the commission of inquiry in 2018, he was explicit that the commission should investigate the \u201cpersistent and continued negative reports\u201d about the PIC that were emerging in the media.<\/p>\n Many of those reports came from amaBhungane and its journalists.<\/p>\n Our coverage started way back in 2012, when we reported the ANC stood to benefit from PIC support for an investment in Capitec Bank by Regiments Capital and partners.<\/p>\n Little did we know that Regiments would go on to play a pivotal role in state capture, but the political imperatives that characterised that deal would become a hallmark of everything that was wrong with PIC.<\/p>\n Those dubious imperatives underlay our early questioning of the PIC\u2019s funding of the 2013 takeover of Independent Newspapers by a consortium led by Dr Iqbal Surv\u00e9 \u2013 and also our probe of the PIC\u2019s disastrous investment in Camac, the American-Nigerian money-pit run by that friend of the ANC, Kase Lawal.<\/p>\n When Matjila, the avuncular \u201cDr Dan\u201d, was still a media darling we started peeling away at his facade.<\/p>\n We did the same with Surv\u00e9 \u2013 enduring abuse and slander from his lapdogs when we started stripping naked his commercial conceits.<\/p>\n Brave whistle-blowers at the PIC got the ball rolling, but in the face of the huge vested commercial and political interests, it was journalism that helped turn their whispers into a roar.<\/p>\n Like this story? Be an amaB Supporter<\/a> <\/span>to help us do more. Sign up for our newsletter<\/a><\/span> to get more.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We said it before. Now so has Judge Lex Mpati.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[289,49],"class_list":["post-11075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-mpati-commission","tag-pic"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30239,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11075\/revisions\/30239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How we paved the way for Mpati<\/h4>\n