---
title: "PIC’s structural rot exposed after Lanseria fallout and before pension billions fall apart again"
description: "As the Public Investment Corporation grapples with a governance crisis and conflicts in its dual mandate, fuelled by the controversial Lanseria Airport deal, it is clear that the structure of the corporation must change."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "AFTER THE BELL"
author: "Stephen Grootes"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/stephengrootes/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-07-16-pics-structural-rot-exposed-after-lanseria-fallout-and-before-pension-billions-fall-apart-again/"
published: "2026-07-16T22:54:49"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 881
---

# PIC’s structural rot exposed after Lanseria fallout and before pension billions fall apart again

> As the Public Investment Corporation grapples with a governance crisis and conflicts in its dual mandate, fuelled by the controversial Lanseria Airport deal, it is clear that the structure of the corporation must change.

By Stephen Grootes · Published 17 July 2026, 00:54 SAST

## Key points
- The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) faces governance crises amid resignations and controversies surrounding a problematic R400-million investment deal in Lanseria Airport.
- Recent reports reveal a significant breakdown in communication and decision-making within the PIC board, raising concerns about accountability.
- A PwC report uncovered valuation errors linked to the PIC’s controversial transactions, questioning the competence of involved firms.
- Analysts argue the PIC's dual mandate to generate returns while also aiding economic development creates inherent conflicts, necessitating structural changes for future stability.

## Content

I’m at a point in life where I realise that there can sometimes be no shortcut to finding a structure that works.

When I got married my wife and I tried various arrangements to jointly manage our money. Then we tried our current system.

It took about six months for us to realise neither of us wanted to change it.

Many years and two wonderful teenagers later, it still works.

You can see companies that have done the same thing. They’ve tried this structure and that structure and this appointment and that executive organogram.

[READ MORE

Treasury had already called for fresh PIC board nominees before this week’s governance storm

July 16, 2026 ![Image](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/i2dIZ5p_lVKcIPOmr0yfzTtstQk=/450x0/smart/file/attachments/orphans/BmfscaPICcopy_147290.jpg)](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-07-16-treasury-had-already-called-for-fresh-pic-board-nominees-before-this-weeks-governance-storm/)

Sometimes a bad structure can sort of survive simply because the personalities involved make it work. And when one of those people leaves suddenly all of the structural problems make themselves felt.

Despite all sorts of different arrangements and personalities at the Public Investment Corporation it is obvious to me that the current structure is not working.

The latest reporting, from [Business Day](https://www.businessday.co.za/companies/2026-07-16-pic-officials-dropped-the-ball-in-dodgy-r400m-payout-for-lanseria-report-says) shows how divided the PIC and its board have become.

Fin24 was the first to report on Wednesday that two members of the board had resigned. And as Carol Paton pointed out in her reporting, both of them were on the board committee dealing with unlisted investments.

On Thursday Business Day reported it had seen documents suggesting there really has been some kind of breakdown between members of the PIC board.

You may remember what started all of this; this incredibly strange deal involving Lanseria Airport and the BEE vehicle Acapulco.

To oversimplify: the PIC bought Lanseria with Acapulco, and lent Acapulco the money to buy its share. When Acapulco didn’t repay the loan they claimed Acapulco’s share. A firm called Crowe gave Lanseria a valuation of R1.7-billion which meant the PIC had to pay Acapulco more than R400-million for its share. As a result the board decided to suspend the CEO who oversaw all of this, Patrick Dlamini (to add to the confusion, Dlamini had been a member of the Lanseria board while also occupying the role of PIC CEO).

[Read more

PIC’s Lanseria fight widens into governance storm over whistleblower claims

June 24, 2026 ![Image](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/NWRppv56AxTSNlBduMOTM88FtRU=/450x0/smart/file/attachments/orphans/neesa-pic-lanseria_v2_401200.jpg)](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-06-24-pics-lanseria-fight-widens-into-governance-storm-over-whistleblower-claims/)

Now it has emerged that a PwC report found huge problems with the valuation that caused all the trouble. Including, incredibly, “double-counting”.

It must be beyond careless that a professional firm can do such a thing.

Things seem a little clearer to me now. Because, as Business Day’s Kabelo Khumalo put it, the massive payment to Acapulco came amid “an absence of documented decision-making”.

I’ve never worked in high finance. But even I know, in my conversations with bosses and managers and producers and other journalists, that you must commit decisions to writing.

How the people involved here, including a now former chief investment officer at the PIC, Kabelo Rikhotso, could not do the same thing looks worse than careless.

It’s precisely what people do when they don’t want to be held responsible for a decision.

You would think that Rikhotso would want to take every opportunity to clear his name. And yet, the PwC team says he refused to be interviewed by them.

And if that doesn’t make you more than a little cynical, I’m afraid you have not been paying attention to anything that has happened over the past 20 years.

Now I fear everyone will evade accountability.

If you were Dlamini, you’d probably be quite keen to take some kind of deal. You don’t want an investigation to make a finding that you did something wrong.

The board will be keen for a deal too. They will want to “move on”.

Which means you and I may not get any kind of official finding on what on Earth went wrong here.

And so often, when two or more members of the board of an entity connected in any way with the government resign, more follow them. So we might find the board is no longer quorate and can’t function.

And this then gives us a chance to try another structure.

The analyst Khaya Sithole has suggested on [The Money Show](https://omny.fm/shows/the-money-show/new-ceo-board-exits-and-an-fsca-probe-at-the-fic?in_playlist=the-best-of-the-money-show) that the PIC’s real problems come from its mandate.

It is supposed to ensure a maximum return for the pension money paid over by government workers. That’s the easy part.

He suggests the real problem is the second part of the mandate. That the PIC is supposed to use that money to also help grow and develop our economy.

Because of the staggering size of the fund, any intervention it makes is going to be controversial.

This is where all of the fighting over the unlisted investments starts. If you’re a group like Acapulco there is so much to gain and virtually nothing to lose.

And because of the size of the PIC, any losses, any ... um ... proceeds that you take out of it, can go unnoticed.

So, what must be done?

I would like to hope the government and National Treasury are a little more systematic than my wife and I were so many years ago.

But the structure of the PIC must change.

Otherwise you and I will be reading about the PIC again in the future.

And again going tut-tut. **DM**