Home

PIC Commission hears how corruption case was opened against former CEO

Frans Lekubo
Reading Time: 3 minutes

The Commission of Inquiry into the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) entered its second week on Monday. Its first witness Frans Lekubo , who is head of Naledi Advisory Services, says they discovered that a senior manager of IT security at PIC had opened a corruption case against its former CEO, Daniel Matjila, with the South African Police Service (SAPS).

Lekubo says they were appointed by the PIC to conduct an investigation into the leaking of confidential information and circulation of malicious reports against the PIC CEO and the CFO but instead found other things. PIC Property Executive Head for unlisted properties, Vuyani Hako, and the Association for Monitoring and Advocacy of Government Pensions (AMAGP) have also testified.

In Mid -2017 Lekubo says he was contacted by Matjila to conduct investigations into the leaking of confidential information and the circulation of malicious reports about him and the CFO. During their investigation, Lekubo established that head of PIC IT security, Simphiwe Mayisela, had opened a corruption case against the CEO with SAPS. The case was opened based on an e-mail report by a whistle blower, James Nogu.

“While conducting investigations and trying to establish the investigation how the confidential PIC information was leaked and who could be responsible for leaking it, we came across the information that there was a criminal case which was registered by a staff member against the CEO of the PIC and the investigation was on going. He was not aware and neither was the PIC aware. During our investigation we established that senior manager of IT security at PIC had opened a corruption case against the CEO of the PIC with the SAPS .”

Mayisela did not notify the board or the CEO, neither did he have a mandate from the PIC board to report the case. Lekubo told the commission, Masiyela was later fired after an internal investigation was conducted. He had illegally intercepted Matjila’s e mails

“In this regard we found that he had extracted information and documentation intended for Dr Matjila and saved them on his computer and found that he had also possibly falsified his academic qualifications and also accessed adult content with his computer.”

Lekubo told the commission they do not know who James Nogu is, but he can easily be found.

“James Nogu is under a webmail account and webmail is a South African company and if we get a SAPS Subpoena we can Subpoena webmail to provide us with the information of the owner of that e-mail account. You can use an alias using anything online but with these web based e-mail accounts you will need what you call a recovery e-mail account or phone number , so you will have to provide a cell number or recovery e-mail. And we would also be able to see the server where the e-mail address came from.”

Naledi Advisory Services says the alleged corruption case against Matjila is still open.

” The last I spoke to SAPS when I was involved with the matter they were perusing the criminal investigations. I met with SAPS at their offices in Johannesburg and they made it very clear they will not ignore the allegations and they are pursuing criminal investigations against Dr Matjila.”

Second witness,  PIC Property Executive Head, Vuyani Hako, also explained the size of its listed and unlisted properties at the PIC of about R50 billion.

The PIC, which is wholly owned by government, has the largest government pension fund in Africa worth about R2 trillion under its control.

Author

MOST READ