It was reported yesterday that “delegates at the ANC’s elective conference have endorsed plans to do away with the Department of Public Enterprises in favour of placing SOEs in line departments”.
This was revealed by the ANC’s head of the economic transformation committee on discussions that ensued at the party’s national conference in Nasrec.
Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said there was a general agreement that the likes of Eskom must be moved to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, while Transnet would be housed under the Department of Transport and Denel would be moved to the Department of Defence.
The final resolution on this and other policy positions are to be announced on January 6, 2023 after the second leg of the national conference which will be convened in a hybrid fashion.
Business Report questioned the viability of the Department of Public Enterprises earlier this year.
What is the actual role that the Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE), Pravin Gordhan, fulfils? Under Gordhan, most if not all SEOs are loss-making.
Who approved, and reappointed, the services of Bain & Company?
Gordhan, as the previous minister of finance, should be aware of the financial cost of consultants; not only their exorbitant consultation fees, but the loss of jobs to employees working within enterprises, and the knock-on cost this has on the sector and the country.
On May 16, 2018 Gordhan addressed Parliament as then minister of the Department of Public Enterprises, now known as the Department of SOEs. Since then, he had aggressively been seeking public-private partnerships to save sinking SOEs, without visible progress.
Anyway, in his 2018 concluding remarks Gordhan stated that the state should be “recaptured”; that those involved in malfeasance should be held to account; governance should be strengthened; entities should be stabilised and returned to financial stability; and the state-owned companies should be used to transform and boost the economy.
He said, “We shall seek to ensure that the SOEs are positioned so that they can facilitate inclusive growth; massive investment, both foreign and local; job creation, skills development; and assist with enterprise-wide and business creation.
“The actions will involve the recapture of SOEs through boards with capacity and integrity; and skilled management with integrity. To conduct forensic audits and ensure the consequence of management, integrity and good governance; including lifestyle audits; and officials must be barred from doing business with SOEs, auditors and legal firms… In other words, they need to clean up their act.”
Gordhan also referred to the merger of airlines, the requirement for procurement processes with transparency and oversight; business models, both now and in the future, where issues of sustainability will be integral to any solution. The SOE needed to be able to promote investment, job development, enable skills acquisition and business growth.
“We need to identify, locate and trace stolen assets so that these can be restored to SOEs and the South African people to whom they belong. The team in the Ministry have demonstrated their loyalty to the ‘New Dawn’ and making government work',” he said.
In 2022 and now looking back, how do you rate Minister Gordhan in achieving his 2018 KPIs?
How does he feel about the burning of Parliament, the humiliation of it not being insured? The ongoing disasters at Transnet, SAA, the Land Bank, the Post Office, Denel, and any of the other enterprises in his portfolio?
BUSINESS REPORT