MPs to hear about Steinhoff debacle

Parliament would hold public hearings on the Steinhoff debacle at the end of January, finance committee chairman Yunus Carrim said on Thursday.

The hearings would be held jointly with the standing committee on public accounts and the portfolio committee on public service and administration.

The Steinhoff scandal, which has sent the share price of the global retailer plummeting, was precipitated when the group reported accounting irregularities in its financial statements. The group is under investigation by regulators in Europe and SA.

The slump in the share price caused concern that the assets of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) would shrink as a result, but the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which manages the fund’s portfolio, pointed out that the investment loss due to Steinhoff represented only 0.6% of the total GEPF portfolio of R1.6-trillion.

Carrim said the hearings would be held on January 30 or 31. He said he had written to the Financial Services Board (FSB), the South African Reserve Bank, the PIC, the GEPF, the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors and the JSE, informing them about the pending hearings and requesting them to provide the committee with the scope or terms of reference of the FSB investigation into Steinhoff and the possible timelines for the completion of the investigation.

Carrim said representatives of Steinhoff would also be invited to make a submission at the hearings, but it was not yet clear from a legal point of view whether a private sector entity was obliged to give evidence before a parliamentary committee as Parliament only has oversight over public entities.

However, Steinhoff executives might welcome the opportunity to provide clarity.

Referring to members and former members of the supervisory board and management board of Steinhoff, DA finance spokesman David Maynier said “we need to know what they knew”.