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Public Investment Corporation (PIC) CEO Patrick Dlamini has launched an urgent court bid against controversial social media commentator Musa Khawula, accusing him of orchestrating a sustained online smear campaign involving allegations of corruption, abuse of public pension funds and claims of a secret child.
In his affidavit filed before the Johannesburg high court on June 15, Dlamini and the PIC are seeking an interim interdict to prevent Khawula from publishing or repeating what they describe as defamatory and injurious allegations targeting both the state-owned asset manager and its CEO.
The application also seeks permission for the court papers to be served on Khawula through his social media accounts and email addresses, amid claims that he is currently incarcerated at the Johannesburg Correctional Facility.
Khawula has embarked on a campaign of spreading defamatory and injurious allegations of corruption by the PIC and an alleged ‘secret child’.
— PIC CEO Patrick Dlamini in court papers
Dlamini, who deposed to the founding affidavit in his capacity as PIC CEO, says the allegations made by Khawula are “false and based on disinformation” and have unlawfully sought to associate him and finance minister Enoch Godongwana with corruption involving public pension funds.
“Khawula has embarked on a campaign of spreading defamatory and injurious allegations of corruption by the PIC and an alleged ‘secret child’,” Dlamini states in the affidavit.
He says Khawula published a series of posts on Facebook and X in which he accused Dlamini and Godongwana of engaging in “shady deals” and having “illegally dipped their nasty hands at the public pensioner’s funds”. According to the affidavit, Khawula further alleged that Dlamini had been involved in a “back-door deal” using public pension money and suggested that Parliament had questioned him about the alleged arrangement.
The PIC boss says none of the allegations are supported by any evidence and argues that the continued circulation of the posts poses a serious threat to the credibility of the institution, which manages government workers’ pension funds and other public investments worth trillions of rand.
Dlamini further accuses Khawula of making deeply personal allegations about his private life, including claims that he was cheating on his wife with a woman identified in the papers as Lebo Leshabane and that the pair had a “secret child”.
The affidavit states that the allegations are “simply false” and that even if they were true, they would constitute a private matter unrelated to his role as PIC CEO.
One of the Facebook posts cited in the papers allegedly described Dlamini as “the very corrupt head of Public Investment Corporation” and accused him of hiding the alleged child from his wife. Another post allegedly claimed that an “official complaint” had been lodged against Dlamini over the alleged squandering of public pension funds with the assistance of Godongwana.
According to the affidavit, the applicants’ attorneys sent Khawula a cease-and-desist letter on June 10 demanding the removal of the social media posts and calling on him to refrain from publishing further allegations against Dlamini and the PIC. The demand was allegedly sent to email addresses associated with Khawula, including info@musakhawula.com and musa.khawula@yahoo.com.
However, Dlamini says Khawula ignored the demand and instead escalated the campaign by publishing additional posts labelled as “Part 2” and “Part 3” of his allegations concerning the PIC and the finance minister.
The affidavit states that one of the posts generated more than 2,900 likes, over 115 comments and was reshared at least 1,400 times, with users accusing Dlamini and Godongwana of corruption and theft of pension funds.
Dlamini argues that the online reaction demonstrates the extent of the reputational damage allegedly caused by the posts.
“The Khawula conduct is solely directed at harming the applicants’ dignity and good reputation and shall invariably impugn the credibility of the PIC that is appointed to manage investments of billions in rands of money belonging to pensioners employed by the government,” Dlamini states.
He further argues that the allegations are particularly harmful given the PIC’s role as Africa’s largest asset manager and because Godongwana occupies one of the most senior financial positions in government. Dlamini says the accusations are “extremely serious but completely unfounded and baseless allegations of criminality [and] corruption”.
The applicants are asking the court to interdict Khawula from making or repeating allegations suggesting corruption by the PIC or Dlamini, as well as claims relating to alleged adultery. They are also seeking punitive legal costs against him.
The matter is expected to be heard in the Johannesburg high court in July.
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