Press Statement dated 7 July 2019
Today’s City Press reports that Dr. Matjila is now bizarrely claiming that it is COSATU which forced his resignation from the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in November 2018.
He alleges that it was because he set certain conditions for the PIC investment in the Edcon rescue package.
He cites a February 2019 email from COSATU to the then PIC Board Chair and Deputy Finance Minister, Mondli Gungubele in support of the Edcon package as proof of some fantastic conspiracy! Whilst being laughable and delusional for so many reasons, let’s stick to the facts and simple common sense.
Dr. Matjila resigned from the PIC in November 2018. This was not an out of the blue development. It had been in the media for some time. It occurred in the context of an avalanche of allegations of serious looting, indefensible investments costing billions of Rands and a complete collapse in good governance at the PIC.
It should be noted that Dr. Matjila wanted to remain as CEO for several months post his resignation notice and that the PIC Board (where COSATU was then not represented) felt that such a situation was untenable and released him immediately.
It was this same context of anarchy and rampant piracy that compelled the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance to repeatedly summonse the PIC to account for what was going on at the PIC. The flood of larceny at the PIC forced the Standing Committee on Finance to draft the anti-corruption PIC Amendment Bill as an intervention to plug the holes on a now clearly fundamentally flawed PIC Act and poor governance mechanisms.
The PIC Amendment Bill enjoyed overwhelming support across party lines and was drafted in close collaboration with COSATU. It compels the PIC to report on all investments and ministerial instructions to the public, depositors and Parliament; it provides for unions on behalf of workers to select 3 representatives to serve on the PIC Board in order to ensure that workers have a voice in how their money is invested; it compels the PIC to act upon the mandate of the depositors; and invest in a manner that protect workers’ pension funds and insurance and supports economic growth and job creation.
Perhaps one of the most revealing aspects of the PIC Amendment’s Bill passage through Parliament, was the unprecedented resistance it received from dubious elements at the PIC who are determined to seeing their looting spree continue.
Could this explain Dr. Matjila’s irritation with COSATU?
COSATU and its affiliate unions have and will continue to intervene and champion the fight against state capture at the PIC as it is workers’ hard earned money. 87% of the PIC are public servants’ pensions and the remainder workers’ unemployement and injury on duty insurance funds.
It is not a slush fund for those who want to gorge themselves, their families and their girl friends.
Now Dr. Matjila claims for some unknown reason to be a victim of COSATU and that he was bullied into resigning. The federation cannot comment on what exactly goes on inside his head, but what is an undeniable fact is that it was the continuous allegations of serious corruption occuring at the PIC during his tenure as CEO that were reported on by the media that compelled the President to institute a judicial commission of enquiry.
Even the most cursory following of the revelations at this Commission, confirm the correctness of the President’s intervention. In fact it was long overdue.
The federation hopes that the NPA will move with speed to prosecute those who have looted at the PIC.
Two weeks ago it was reported that COSATU had somehow bullied or strong armed government and the PIC into investing in the Edcon package. Dr. Matjila says it was his request that one investor be part of the package that compelled COSATU to somehow force him to resign.
Again it’s difficult to ascertain as to which reality Dr. Matjila lives in.
Dr. Matjila met with Edcon on the morning of 23 November 2018 to discuss the intervention package. He indicated he supported the deal. Yet at 12pm that same day he resigned.
COSATU and its affected clothing and retail affiliates SACTWU and SACCAWU became involved in the Edcon engagements in late January 2019.
A whole 2 months after Matjila’s resignation!
It is strange how 9 months later now Dr. Matjila has had an ephiphany that it was COSATU who forced his long overdue resignation!
The Edcon package was a tripartite collective. It included the funders (local and international banks), the landlords and labour (through the UIF). The package was worth R2.7 billion, of which R1.2 billion comes from the UIF. All parties invested and received shares in Edcon. Edcon’s debt was converted into equity and is now debt free and able to focus on stabilising and growing Edcon.
COSATU’s interest was in saving 40 000 direct jobs at Edcon and 100 000 indirect jobs at factories that supply Edcon and related service providers e.g. security guards, cleaners etc. The deal had to meet the normal investment criteria of the UIF and the PIC Boards.
COSATU’s mandate was and remains the unashamed protection of its members and workers’ jobs.
It is important to note that the deal had the blessings of both local and international banks. Banks are not in the business of handing out money for free. They insisted upon various guarantees that the deal was sustainable and would deliver a return upon its investments.
The UIF Act itself allows the UIF to invest where jobs can be saved and created as its contribution to defeating the crisis of unemployment. In fact, COSATU and its affiliates have often engaged the UIF and the PIC on ways to invest and create jobs.
COSATU is accused by Dr. Matjila and his cohorts of having bullied government into this deal and that we somehow also forced his resignation in November 2018 by writing to Deputy Minister Gungubele in February 2019. It’s very difficult to try to string the dots of this chronoligical gymnastics.
Perhaps, Dr. Matjila is a member of the flat earth society!
All we can say as COSATU is that yes we unashamedly championed the Edcon intervention. COSATU’s members have mandated us to fight to the very end to defend workers’ jobs. The federation relentlessly fought to ensure that Edcon and 140 000 workers’ jobs were saved. We repeatedly engaged not only the PIC and Deputy Minister Gungubele in this regard, but also the UIF, Ministers Ebrahim Patel and Mildred Oliphant, the banks, the lenders, Edcon, other labour federations and the President of the Republic. And yes we were blunt about this.
This is what workers correctly expect from their federation COSATU and their government. Equally COSATU insists upon Ministers who will, within the parameters of the law, fight to save workers’ jobs 24/7. This is not a secret. COSATU issued numerous public statements to this effect.
COSATU further cited in its submission to the PIC Commission of Enquiry, the Edcon intervention as an example of how the PIC should play a role in protecting jobs, growing the economy and a form of worker solidarity.
If Dr. Matjila believes it was COSATU and its unashamed fight to protect workers’ jobs and defeat corruption that compelled his resignation, then the federation will gladly claim this victory and say good riddance to bad rubbish.
COSATU’s mandate from workers is to save jobs and not to line the pockets of a parasitic elite.
We will not be apologetic in that fight.
Issued by Matthew Parks, Parliamentary Coordinator, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu)