Parliament cannot review Mpati report, says Masondo
• Sekunjalo and Ayo asked finance committee to deal with commission’s findings and their disputes with the PIC
Deputy finance minister David Masondo has rejected Iqbal Survé’s plea for parliament to intervene in Ayo Technology Solutions’s disputes with the Public Investment Corporation (PIC).
The deputy minister on Wednesday said parliament’s standing committee on finance was not the right platform for aggrieved parties to seek to amend the report of the Mpati commission of inquiry.
He said the aggrieved parties should go to court if they want the Mpati commission report reviewed as neither the National Treasury nor the finance committee can amend or set aside its findings.
Also, the PIC should be allowed to deal on its own with disputes between itself and other parties over its transactions in the fulfilment of its fiduciary duties to its clients, which include the Government Employees Pension Fund, the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Fund.
“The ministry of finance, or the standing committee on finance, cannot tell the PIC how to act against those they have funded. They need to do what they need to do, taking into account the investment mandate of their clients,” Masondo said, adding that the Treasury cannot tell the PIC how to settle these matters.
However, Masondo qualified his statement by saying it is up to the parties to use whatever dispute resolution mechanisms they want, and if these do
not work, the courts are the only alternative.
Masondo called on Survé to present the facts on how Sekunjalo and Ayo are being targeted rather than make allegations.
Masondo, who was representing the Treasury, was responding to presentations made to the committee by
Sekunjalo Investment Holdings chair Survé and executives of its subsidiary, Ayo Technology Solutions, and Matome Maponya Investments (MMI) on their disputes with the PIC and the findings of the Mpati commission of inquiry into the PIC.
Abel Sithole, CEO of the PIC, also made a presentation.
This was the second time the executives appeared before the finance committee.
The PIC, which has assets under management of nearly R2-trillion, has instituted legal action against Ayo in which Sekunjalo has an indirect interest on the grounds that the R4.3bn investment it made in the
company was based on misleading claims about its prospects and on the irregular intervention by former PIC CEO Dan Matjila. MMI is also in a legal dispute with the PIC.
Sithole also said the PIC cannot respond to objections to adverse findings in the Mpati report.
MMI chair Kholofelo Maponya said the group had come to parliament because it had exhausted all other means to resolve its dispute with the PIC.
ANC MP Noxolo Abraham said Masondo’s comments had a “disarming” effect on the committee, which has an interest on behalf of the PIC’s clients to advise the corporation to stay out of court unless all other options failed.
EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu, however, believes the committee can play an advisory role to settle the disputes outside the courts.
THEY NEED TO DO WHAT THEY NEED TO DO, TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE INVESTMENT MANDATE OF THEIR CLIENTS
Finance committee chair Joe Maswanganyi also said there is nothing wrong with groups approaching the executive for a solution and the courts should not be the first option if there are other platforms that can be used. He said it would also be illegal for parliament to close its doors to any party that wanted to meet one of its committees as parliament promoted participatory democracy.
Survé said his group will take the Mpati commission report on review. The report was released by the presidency in March last year.