Anglo built its empire on the backs of South Africans. If the PIC cannot defend their interests, and if Parliament and the Executive will not hold it to account, then all three betray not just their mandates, but the very constitutional promise that wealth and power exist to serve the people.
In a recent Daily Maverick opinion piece, Mmusi Maimane warned that the quiet replacement of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) board signals a deep crisis in governance and public accountability.
Maimane is right. But the implications of that crisis extend far beyond the composition of the board. For the communities whose land and labour built South Africa's mineral wealth, the PIC's silence on Anglo American's planned exit from the country represents a betrayal of constitutional duty and economic sovereignty.
From public custodian to passive bystander
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The PIC is the second-largest shareholder in Anglo American, holding roughly 7% of the company's global equity. That makes it not just another investor, but a public custodian of national wealth, acting on behalf of millions of South Africans, including teachers, nurses, mineworkers and civil servants whose pensions it manages.
Yet, as Anglo prepares to shift its centre of gravity abroad through a R62-billion merger with Canada's Teck Resources, the PIC has remained silent, offering no public statement, no conditional engagement and no defence of South African interests.
A century of extraction, a debt still unpaid
"For more than a century, Anglo American was arguably the single most powerful private actor in South...
