Illustrative Image: Public Investment Corporation CEO Patrick Dlamini. (Photo: James Oatway / Gallo Images / Sunday Times). | Secretary bird. (Photo: iStock) | (By Daniella Lee Ming Yesca)It’s flattering to have your work quoted in editorial submissions. Public Investment Corporation (PIC) CEO Patrick Dlamini reached for this writer’s recent explainer on the economic animal spirits that rule our economy in an Opinion piece penned exclusively for Daily Maverick titled “Every rand has a name”.
He invoked the PIC’s own animal emblem, the secretary bird, to describe how the public fund manager “hunts on foot across tough terrain, remaining patient with eyes focused directly on the ground,” just like the coat of arms adornment that the PIC claims as its emblem.
“Following a period marked by dramatic market turbulence, this creature accurately embodies an institution entrusted to safeguard public wealth,” Dlamini continued, before giving his version of the truth documented in the latest annual results.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/kalahari-5_resize.jpg "A secretarybird strides across the plains, looking out for tasty snakes and lizards. (Photo: Chris Marais)")
The PIC news, according to Dlamini: A year of shocks and of recovery
“During the 12 months ending 31 March 2026, client assets under our management expanded by R608-billion, representing a 20% increase to reach R3.657-trillion. Pure investment returns drove this impressive expansion even with outflows of R172-billion to clients’ portfolios over the same period.
“This journey required relentless navigation through rough financial waters. By February, overall asset values reached R3.958-trillion, approaching the historic milestone of R4-trillion. Within weeks, sudden geopolitical friction across the Middle East erased over R300-billion from our balances. By 31 August, recovery propelled values back up to R3.819-trillion.”
Getting down to business
It’s a legitimately cool story, and he does not tell a single lie in a roughly 1,200-word document. However, a rigorous comparison between Dlamini’s narrative and the PIC’s actual 2026 Integrated Annual Report and Annual Financial Statement (AFS) reveals a sharp divergence between the headline figures, public relations claims and institutional reality.
While the Opinion piece presents an image of administrative harmony and unyielding accountability, the audited disclosures reveal all the underlying stories that Daily Maverick has reported on (litigation, regulatory probes and audit non-compliance) and, of course, are marred by that en masse board resignation.
But just looking at some of the framing around assets under management (AuM) growth, for instance, reveals a particular view of the facts.
Yes, AuM increased from R3.049-trillion to R3.657-trillion, but that growth was driven almost entirely by strong local stock market rallies (JSE All Share Index up 33.6%). The PIC actually suffered R172-billion in net capital outflows, including R160-billion withdrawn by the Government Employees’ Pension Fund (GEPF).
Dlamini also has a wild view on “disciplined cost management” – operating expenses escalated by 15% to R1.427-billion, propelled by surging employee costs and IT implementations, alongside recurring irregular expenditure from unauthorised acting allowances.
And then there’s the performance of the largely problematic unlisted portfolio, where unlisted debt and equity management fees decreased by 10%. It’s just that the unlisted investment returns (excluding property) generated a negative internal rate of return (IRR) of -0.2% due to lower deployment rates and debt repayments.
Beyond semantics
Dlamini’s claim that management “accounts openly and completely for every rand” is in direct contradiction with material disclosures buried in the 2026 AFS Events After the Reporting Period and Auditor-General Report.
His claims of “institutional alignment and internal harmony” don’t really survive contact with the AFS-documented reality that he was placed on a precautionary suspension by the former board, a move that he had to challenge in court to overcome on a technical procedural point.
Ditto the claims of “stable corporate governance and oversight,” which he can only say now after Cabinet had to intervene to reconstitute an entirely new board.
Dlamini also wrote that there is now “complete transparency and accountability”, which is a bold claim in the face of the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) launching a formal investigation under Section 135 of the Financial Sector Regulation Act following whistleblower allegations regarding governance breakdown, leadership instability, and executive suspensions.
He also crowed about “sound investment due diligence”, despite the very documents he cites stating that the Auditor-General of South Africa referred a material irregularity involving insufficient due diligence in approving and disbursing an investment to the Special Investigating Unit on 13 July because management failed to take appropriate corrective action.
Logical next steps
Daily Maverick requested an interview when the Opinion piece landed in our inbox, and we will do a full follow-up after that conversation happens.
But, as it stands, the PIC CEO’s narrative is a long way from reflecting routine institutional vigilance.
Dlamini’s Opinion piece functions as a calculated public relations campaign designed to emphasise market-driven asset figures while concealing deep governance turmoil, executive litigation, and active oversight probes.
“For the past 20 years, the PIC has consistently grown the assets of its clients – from R585-billion in 2006 to R3.657-trillion by 31 March 2026, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 9.6% per annum,” the CEO wrote, reflecting on the institutional legacy.
We reviewed the last 10 years and found a fund manager that is keeping the public pension fund solvent by beating CPI benchmarks over the long term. And this proves that the PIC can execute its basic mandate as a large-scale index manager for public pension funds due to South Africa’s deep financial markets.
However, its ability to act as an ethical, self-governing developmental investor is fundamentally compromised by recurring executive warfare, audit non-compliance, and fee extraction.
Dlamini says that every rand has a name, but that’s just a nice-sounding headline until he can provide the birth and death register for every rand that leaked through the unlisted part of the portfolio without any animal business. DM
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