News24 reports that Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana says he will still appoint former Public Investment Corporation (PIC) employee Mpumelo Maseko to the asset manager’s board after a case of mistaken identity led to the wrong person being appointed as a director.

The Cabinet announced the new directors of the PIC on 3 September, naming Mpumelelo Maseko as one of Godongwana’s discretionary picks for the board. However, Godongwana had intended to appoint Mpumelo Maseko, the former PIC employee, and not Mpumelelo Maseko, the former Treasury official. When the mistake was discovered last week, Godongwana requested Mpumelelo to resign. On Sunday, Godongwana said he did not know how the mistake had happened but planned to rectify it by appointing Mpumelo. Meantime, Mpumelo’s appointment is controversial in investment industry circles.

The bungle over the PIC board follows two other recent major errors made by the Cabinet in selecting directors for state-owned companies. In June, it appointed Sam Bhembe as a director to the board of the Industrial Development Corporation, even though he was involved in a dispute over a R70-million loan with the organisation. He was subsequently unappointed. In August, it announced the appointment of a board for the new Transport Economic Regulator (TER), which included several inappropriate choices. A second version of the Cabinet statement removed the section announcing the TER appointments without explanation.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Carol Paton at News24 (subscription / trial registration required)

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