The new board of the Public Investment Corporation will be led by Deputy Minister of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Seiso Mohai.
The Cabinet announced the appointments at a briefing in Pretoria on Thursday.
Seiso is an ANC politician from the Free State, where he did a four-year stint as MEC for Finance during Ace Magashule’s premiership from 2009 to 2013. Prior to this, he served as MEC for Public Works in the province. In 2014, he became the Free State’s permanent representative in the National Council of Provinces until 2024. He was appointed a deputy minister following the 2024 general election.
The PIC Act requires that it be chaired by a deputy minister in the economic cluster. It also requires that the board include: two representatives of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF); a representative from the largest union in the GEPF; a union representative nominated by the Public Sector Coordinating Bargaining Chamber; and a representative of the Treasury.
The other appointments to the board include:
- Patience Nqeto, the deputy chair of the DBSA.
- Lebogang Mokgabudi, a former GEPF board member and a former senior manager at Visa. Mokgabudi is the GEPF nominee.
- Swazi Tshabalala, a former senior vice-president of the African Development Bank, and a former Standard Bank executive. Tshabalala is also a GEPF nominee.
- Ouma Rasethaba, a former NPA prosecutor and former head of Telkom policy and chief risk officer.
- Vivien McMenamin, Mondi CEO.
- Moipone Ramoipone, from the Office of the Accountant General, as the National Treasury representative.
- Itani Mafune, CA with previous leadership roles at PwC and Absa.
Most of the previous board’s directors resigned a week ago, including Deputy Minister of Finance David Masondo.
READ | PIC board suspends CEO
Masondo and Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana have been in deep disagreement over a number of actions taken by Masondo and the previous board. These include: an attempt to split the chief investment officer role into three and make appointments; and the suspension of the CEO Patrick Dlamini, on grounds of an anonymous whistleblower report, the contents of which have not yet been verified.
The Cabinet said it would revisit the Mpati recommendations for possible reforms in the future. One of the most important reforms from the Mpati Commission was the recommendation that the board should not be chaired by a politician. Changing this would require an amendment to the PIC Act.
