PIC’s Internal Controls Unable to Prevent Leaks, Ex-CEO Says
PIC’s Internal Controls Unable to Prevent Leaks, Ex-CEO Says
(Bloomberg) -- Africa’s largest pension-fund manager didn’t have adequate data-protection measures to prevent confidential information being leaked by employees to people outside of the company, according to the former chief executive officer.
Daniel Matjila, in his ninth day of testimony before an ongoing probe into allegations of wrongdoing at the Public Investment Corp., said he initiated an investigation after accusations by an anonymous whistle-blower against senior executives about two years ago. The PIC embarked on “serious IT security awareness and training” and by the time Matjila left the PIC in late 2018, all staff had done extensive courses on how to secure data, he said.
The allegations of financial misconduct are largely what prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to order a commission of inquiry in October last year, one of several he’s instituted to probe alleged graft since taking office 16 months ago. The PIC is responsible for the bulk of South African civil-servant pension funds.
“The PIC was protected against external attack,” Matjila said in Pretoria on Tuesday. The company’s weakness lay in an inability to prevent a breach from inside the money manager, he said.
The accusations of wrongdoing created a fearful work environment, with employees being disgruntled, suspicious and unproductive, a former board member told the inquiry in February.
Later in his Tuesday testimony, Matjila said an investment in Sekunjalo Investment Holdings Pty Ltd., which in turn had a stake in Independent Media S.A., had performed “very poorly,” though this was in line with other print media companies. On Monday, he said the PIC lost $333 million after a “poor investment” in Erin Energy Corp., a U.S. oil explorer.
The commission is investigating dubious investment decisions as part of the wider probe into financial wrongdoing. Several previous witnesses have highighted Matjila’s role in many of them.
To contact the reporter on this story: Janice Kew in Johannesburg at jkew4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, John Bowker, Alastair Reed
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