Minister bids to stop processing of PIC Bill

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has written to the chair of the National Council of Provinces’ (NCOP's) Select Committee on Finance to prevent the passage of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) Amendment Bill, says a Business Day report. Treasury chief director for financial markets, Roy Havemann, mentioned the letter during public hearings held by the committee. However, comments made by committee chair Charel De Beer in an interview afterwards indicated the committee would not be influenced by the Minister’s letter and that its process of considering the Bill would proceed, saying: 'We were asked not to go forward with the process.’ Havemann said Mboweni was concerned about two outstanding issues. One relates to a governance issue as to whether a political office bearer should be the chair of the PIC board. The second issue relates to the work of the commission of inquiry under retired Judge Lex Mpati, who wrote to Mboweni highlighting the fact that the commission is still considering matters around the governance of the PIC board. The judge asked that this be taken into account during the parliamentary process. ‘The commission is considering the appropriate governance structure of the board at the moment and it has written to the Finance Minister to ask that it be allowed to complete its work on that,’ Havemann said. De Beer stressed that the multi-party chief whips and programming committees have instructed that the NCOP deal with the Bill and report on it to the NCOP plenary. De Beer said the Bill was an interim measure. There will be recommendations arising from the commission of inquiry but these will be incorporated into another Bill that could be considered by the next Parliament after the elections, he reportedly said.

Full City Press report