Standard Bank's alleged exploitation of the Public Investment Corporation

DESPITE the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) facing governance and performance challenges, the country’s banks - especially Standard Bank - have been engaging in multiple significant business deals and collaborations with the state-owned asset management entity over the years, allegedly continuing to exploit the situation for their own gain.

- MANYANE MANYANE

UNITED Democratic Movement (UDM) leader, General Bantu Holomisa, has raised concerns about the country's banks, particularly Standard Bank in exploiting the Public Investment Corporation (PIC). ARMAND HOUGH Independent Newspapers

United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader General Bantu Holomisa recently raised concerns about commercial banks. He accused them of structuring self-serving deals with the PIC that leave the pension fund, and ultimately public servants, to shoulder significant risk.

Holomisa, in a formal letter addressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Chairperson of the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), Songezo Zibi, sounded the alarm over what he described as deeply troubling irregularities within the PIC. He cautioned that the scale and nature of these alleged transgressions could rival, if not surpass, the infamous state capture scandal.

Holomisa’s communication urged urgent parliamentary scrutiny and executive intervention, warning that the reported governance lapses, questionable investment decisions, and potential conflicts of interest within the PIC posed a serious threat to the integrity of the institution and the security of public funds entrusted to it. He claimed that some banks advised the PIC on risky deals while securing their own financial positions in the same transactions, suggesting these banks should be held accountable. He said these banks hide behind the so-called loopholes, a term for a set of internal policies and procedures that restrict the flow of confidential information between departments or teams within the same firm.