Parliament, Wednesday, 29 April 2026 – The Standing Committee on Finance conducted oversight visits to investment projects of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in Limpopo and Gauteng as part of its parliamentary responsibility to oversee the performance and financial management of public entities.
The committee’s oversight programme started, yesterday, at Daybreak Foods, in Bela-Bela, Limpopo, which is currently under business rescue after the PIC invested over R1,6 billion in the poultry company.
The once promising poultry business which was rated among the top poultry producers in the country suffered financial distress due to lack of proper governance, poor financial controls and irregular expenditure, as well as fraud and corruption. Now the PIC is financing the business rescue process with a hope of reviving the business which created thousands of jobs in the area.
Some of the early interventions by the Business Rescue Practitioners (BRP) were scaling down operations, retrenching over 2000 workers, suspending the Chief Financial Officer and trying to raise capital through strategic equity partners.
The committee labelled the story of the collapse of Daybreak as horrible and disappointing, and called for action against those responsible for the collapse of this important investment.
Committee Chairperson, Dr Joe Maswanganyi, said it was unfortunate that such an important investment project collapsed because of lack of good governance and financial controls.
“This is not state money, but hard-earned money of the workers who have put their money in the Government Employees Pension Fund for the PIC to manage, our conscious must be clear, we need to make sure the entity is turned around in the best interest of the investors, the workers.
“We believe there will be consequences, it cannot be that such an important company collapses and no one is held accountable, and the workers’ money just disappears. We must know what happened that led to the collapse of the entity, and those who have done something wrong cannot escape without any consequences,” said Dr Maswanganyi.
He said the committee was confident that the business rescue intervention will be able to turn Daybreak around. The highlight of the committee’s PIC oversight was the Raslouw Private Hospital in Tshwane, which is owned by another PIC investment project, RH Managers, a private hospital group which is challenging the big players in the private healthcare sector.
The committee was impressed with the PIC investment which will include the building of 26 new private hospitals in small towns and rural areas across eight provinces, to provide services at rates lower than the big private hospitals.
The committee was also impressed with the PIC investment in the hospital group and at the Menlyn Main, a state-of-the-art precinct in Tshwane which includes a shopping mall, hotel, specialisation hospital, office and residential block, calling it a good story of the public private partnership which must be celebrated.
“When we decided to visit the PIC projects, we did not only want to see the most progressive and profitable, but also the worst, and we saw for ourselves what is happening, we welcome the efforts of the PIC to rebuild Daybreak, such huge investment cannot be allowed to fail,” said Dr Maswanganyi.
In its recommendations to the PIC the committee emphasised that transformation must be on top of the agenda, and that investment needs to prioritize projects owned by women, youth and persons with disabilities.
The committee also advised the PIC to develop systems for early detection of non-performing investments to avoid cases like Daybreak. The PIC Chief Executive Officer Mr Patrick Dlamini told the committee that the entity was committed to improve in the areas of accountability by its investee companies, reporting and governance.
The committee will conclude its programme tomorrow when it joins the Standing Committee on Appropriations for a joint oversight at the SARS headquarters in Tshwane. The focus of the SARS oversight will be on revenue administration, compliance, digital transformation, illicit economy, and data processing systems.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, DR JOE MASWANGANYI.
For media enquiries or interviews with the committee Chairperson, please contact:
Name: Sakhile Mokoena
Cell: 081 705 2130
E-mail: smokoena@parliament.gov.za
Arrange a tour