POLITICS

Complaint to be lodged regarding Transnet pensioners’ investments – Anton Alberts

FF Plus wants trustees that serve on council and as directors be declared incompetent

FF Plus to lodge a complaint regarding Transnet pensioners’ investments and Transnet directors giving Regiments a blank cheques

10 October 2017

New information that surfaced regarding Gupta-linked companies plundering Transnet employees’ pension funds convinced the FF Plus to lodge a complaint with the Companies Commission and to request that the trustees that serve on the council of the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund (TSDBF) and serve as directors of Transnet, will be declared incompetent to act as directors.

According to the FF Plus chairperson, adv Anton Alberts, this step was necessitated by the fact that the TSDBF laid a charge against the company Regiments Capital for making illegal payments to Trillian and Albatime – all of which are Gupta-linked companies.

He says that it is shocking that, given the impoverishment of the pensioners due to Transnet’s plundering of their assets and the non-payment of historic debt, the Transnet-appointed trustees had the arrogance to allow the Gupta-linked companies to come near the TSDBF so that they could plunder it.

“It has now come to light that even more of what is left of the skimpy pension funds of Transnet pensioners has been embezzled. The TSDBF now laying a charge to recover the money is too little too late.

“The FF Plus directed various parliamentary questions to the Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Browne, with regard to the matter.

“She will also have to take responsibility for all of this seeing as over the past year the FF Plus repeatedly asked questions about the appointment of Regiments as the fund manager of the TSDBF and time and again the response was that the due diligence investigations were thoroughly conducted before the appointment.

“It, however, now seems that the investigations were not thorough as once again it is the pensioners that have to bear the brunt. The FF Plus will ensure that the guilty parties pay,” says adv Alberts.

Issued by Anton Alberts, FF Plus chairperson and parliamentary spokesperson: Transport, 10 October 2017