Minister Pravin Gordhan is faced with the mammoth task of turning the Department of Public Enterprises around. It will not be easy to get rid of all the tentacles of state capture. And unfortunately, an octopus’s tentacles keep clinging long after the head has been removed.
It is ironic that this department with all its public enterprises that was supposed to establish the ANC’s developmental state and bring about development success for South Africa, is the department that is the most affected by state capture. The benefits of the so-called developmental state were ultimately channelled to less than 50 people out of a population of 56 million.
South Africa’s economy is centrally planned and centrally controlled, and the state is simultaneously player and referee instead of creating a stable, healthy environment that will enable the private sector to grow and create jobs. For such an environment to be established, the state cannot be a player as well, except if it acts as a public developer.
If the SAA was privately managed, chances are that it would have been profitable today. But seeing as the airline is a public enterprise, it can continue on its dysfunctional way without fear of being closed down or being called to account.
The FF Plus is going to submit a petition to Parliament on behalf of Solidarity requesting that no more money is wasted on bailing out SAA and that the airline must be put under business rescue and be either partially or wholly privatised.
The problems at SAA, Eskom, Transnet, PRASA and elsewhere clearly show that public enterprises are only looking out for their own interests and are not truly there to serve the public. Most of the entities offer valuable services, but in the light of global technological advancement and growing business acumen, it is not necessary for these entities to be controlled by the state.
Against this economic backdrop, the Department is superfluous and entities that are not privatised should be managed by their functional departments.
It is lamentable that state capture not only affected public enterprises, but that it also created an environment in which the pension funds of these entities were mismanaged and even looted in some cases – as in the case of the Transnet pension fund.
The legislation that regulates the pension funds opened the door for serious malpractice and it has resulted in disastrous consequences for the impoverished pensioners. The FF Plus is, therefore, requesting that the Minister appoint a pension fund adjudicator for all the public enterprises’ pension funds.
The FF Plus finds it encouraging that the government is currently considering a settlement in the Transnet pension fund case.
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