House Deputy Speaker, when one reads
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That is a new portfolio.
... House Deputy Speaker. Deputy Speaker, you know it is because you were so speedy today; you got all excited for having me at the podium.
If one looks at the Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report, BRRR, report of the state capture and I say that once again, the hon Jefferey would do good to stop hackling and listen a little bit to the state capture given his portfolio, one would know that exactly how it reads is much like a horror story and not like a dream that was promised to us in this House. Reading this report one sees that Eskom is archaic in its structure and it is absolutely falling apart. We all know it cannot keep the lights on. Never mind the fact that the DA does issue forewarning SA Airways, SAA, lands up being grounded and causes chaos. The only thing that kept South Africans safe were the wonderful men and women who are
our pilots who refused to fly aeroplanes that were not safe.
Alexkor still remains directly linked to a Gupta family. Let me say that again, Alexkor remains directly linked to the Gupta family.
Denel, well we just pray that they can pay the salaries at the end of the month. However, let us be honest, as we read this horror story of the Department of Public Enterprises that is the department of state capture, so many of those that executed this grand scale corruption are sitting to my right, enjoying their chair people's positions and, you know, no one seems to be doing anything about it while the country looks on in dismay. So, I say shame to you and for anyone who approves this report.
The fact of the matter is this, this department should not exist. Eskom should be with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. Denel should be with the Department of Defence and Military Veterans; Alexkor should also be
with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and SAA should be with the Department of Transport.
There is absolutely no way that the DA, the Official Opposition of South Africa could accept a report in which we have said the Department of Public Enterprises as a whole should not exist and we encourage every party in this Parliament to follow suit. Let us close down this defunct department. [Applause.]
Hon Deputy Speaker, this committee report deals with the state-owned enterprises, SOEs, under public enterprises presided over by Mr Gordhan. The reality is that the committee does not challenge the philosophical direction Mr Gordhan wants to take in relation to these SOEs. That is subject them largely to privatisation. That is why we cannot associate ourselves with it.
For purposes of this declaration we pay special focus on Eskom. Firstly, Mr Gordhan releases the restructuring and recovery plan for Eskom today. This is before he even appoints a credible and competent leadership over Eskom.
Meaning he is imposing a plan on the Eskom leadership. He is essentially telling us that he is going to run Eskom himself. Why then he did not put his curriculum vitae, CV, in the mix.
In his paper on the recovery plan, Mr Gordhan says Eskom is too big to manage and I am quoting him verbatim. This is utter rubbish which exposes him as the worst man for the job. No different to the current chairperson, chief executive officer, CEO, and board, called Jabu Mabuza. For until 10 years ago, Eskom was one of the world's best power utilities, but it was around 2008 when things started going down the South as evergreen coal contracts started taking its all on Eskom and later complemented by Independent Power Producers, IPPs, that the problem started.
When Mr Gordhan says Eskom is too big to manage, he is trying to convince himself that the privatisation process which starts with the unbundling process will save the power utility when in fact it does not, but essentially disposes of it.
Nothing is actually original at all in this plan that he unveiled today. Mr Gordhan outsourced his thinking to Investec because everything in that paper comes from the Investec one page paper written in November last year. He is unoriginal and basically here to disempower the state's capacity to deliver services that it ought to, so that we can depend on individually and privately-owned companies for our survival on electricity.
We reject this report. We reject the unbundling of Eskom as completely unoriginal and exposing Mr Gordhan as not the man for the job. Public enterprises must be shut down. It is an unnecessary department wasting taxpayers' money. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Hon Deputy Speaker, we must admit that the state- owned enterprises, SOEs, are a crisis. These SOEs continues to be a burden on our limited resources. The IFP believes that at the core of these challenges that are faced by the SOEs is the lack of moral and ethical leadership. We have long called for various entities to be transferred to their respective line function departments.
Hon Deputy Speaker, it makes no sense that Passenger Rail of SA, Prasa, reports at the Department of Transport, but the SA Airways, SAA, reports to the Minister of Public Enterprises.
State interventions in the SOEs must be minimum in ensuring that they are successful. Yes, there is a place for the state to create an enabling environment, but entities should be self-sufficient to be able to deliver on their core mandate. The IFP therefore supports this Bill to pool all in a hope that the Minister will deal decisively and urgently with all forms of grafts, maladministration and those who are accused of wrongdoing must be held to account. Thank you.
Hon Deputy Speaker, it is clear from this report that the ANC succeeded to completely destroy state-owned entities. The ANC is at the core of these failed entities. The departments and the executives as a whole failed to do the necessary oversight and prevent the looting from happening. Consequences are lacking.
The board members, the accounting officers and the executives who were responsible for allowing the state- owned entities to be exploited, to be looted and to be mismanaged should be held accountable. These state-owned entities are nothing else than black holes for taxpayers money. The people of South Africa are suffering because of these failed state-owned entities.
We are facing an energy crisis, but the recovery plan and the turnaround plan announced by the Minister today will not address and selvage the situation. Everything that the ANC has touched needs a recovery plan. The reason why there is a Department of Public Enterprises was part of a turnaround strategy. Everything the ANC touches needs a recovery plan. We need to privatise these state-owned entities. This department is obsolete and should be terminated. I thank you. [Applause.]
Declarations of Vote:
Deputy Speaker, the ACDP shares the deep concerns about the precarious state of our state-owned companies, SOCs, and of course Eskom in particular with a R450 billion debt presents the gravest threat to the
country's finances given its debt and that R350 billion government guarantee it holds.
Load shedding, as we know, resulted in a 3,2% contraction in the economic growth in the first quarter of this year and we know the additional funding requirements that have placed a severe pressure and constraint upon the fiscus.
Today, the Minister announced the long-awaited restructuring plan in his Special Paper on Eskom and of course this would take some time to recover the looting and state capture that took place over a number of years.
The report also deals with the challenges facing Alexkor, Denel, SA Forestry Company Limited, Safcol, Transnet, SA Airways, SAA, and SA Express but the question arises, what role did the department play and what role should we play in exercising oversight?
Now, the committee notes in its report that the corrective measures to improve them, "SOCs performance have not been sufficiently addressed."
Now this is probably the understatement of the year and we fully endorse that statement because the key to this lies in effective oversight by not only the department and I tend to agree that the department and the entity should be split into different portfolios as it is suggested.
But of course, Parliament's oversight and it was indeed a highlight of my political career in the Fifth Parliament when we exercised oversight over Eskom. There are a number of significant recommendations in this Bill such as the Shareholders Management Bill and of course holding lifestyle audits.
So, in general, there is a proposal here but when one considers the state of our state-owned companies, regrettably, we will not be able to support this report but look forward to an improvement going forward. I thank you.
Deputy Speaker, the NFP notes the Budget Review and Recommendation Report, BRRR, on Public
Enterprises tabled here today. The NFP will support the report tabled here today.
Allow me to express our disappointment on some of these entities like Safcol and SA Airways for not even being able to provide an annual report for the 2018-20019 financial year.
Let me start off by addressing the issue of the SA Airways and I think as the NFP we have previously asked what the reason was that when it comes to the state-owned entities, they can not be profitable and yet when they are in private hands they are profitable.
And I think from the response you have now what is clear is that there has been political interference in the way we appoint these boards and cadre deployment and these are the things that have brought us to where we are in terms of the state-owned entities.
And it is for that reason, I want to plead with everybody today, as a result of the interference by Members of
Parliament, the government in state-owned entities, we are where we are.
Let us leave the Amabhokobhoko who are in Japan alone to do their business without any interference so that they can bring the cup home on Saturday afternoon.
Let me talk about the issue of Eskom, you know, year in and year out, we are asked to bail out Eskom. Again we have a management problem with Eskom but more importantly, while you are putting money into Eskom. Eskom is owed billions of rand and that money is not coming into it.
So I think it is time that we address the issues of the debt to Eskom that are not paid by government departments particularly the municipalities and we need to deal with that.
SA Express has a serious problem, wanting more aircraft, do not have the money. And what happens at the end of the day, the passengers on those flights are now being put on to Comair and FlySafair. Now really it does not make
sense having our own airline but making use of other airlines. The NFP will support this.
Deputy Speaker, the BRRR process provides Parliament with an opportunity to exercise oversight on financial management and performance management against agreed targets and programmes. It also enables the ANC to ascertain whether the department has managed ANC government policies and programmes and assess the impact and quality expenditure hence the need to have the department itself, hon Mazzone.
Now, the philosophical discussions around it and we will tell you what the philosophical discussion, it is not the man; it is the ball itself that you need to play. In the view of the ANC, state-owned companies are not created to maximise profits or incur losses rather their existence is for the purpose of driving our national developmental agenda through or to strike a balance between self- funding and undertaking developmental projects.
The unfortunate narrative is our national discourse and SOCs has been dominated by allegations of state capture
and corruption and recently about bailouts. While we acknowledge the history and the depth of the challenges, it is time for the country to move and to focus on the delivery mandate of the SOCs and state-owned enterprises, SOEs.
Eskom, for instance, must focus on delivering affordable and reliable energy services to South Africans. Now, it is not a secret that the state of capture has left huge systematic black skilled professionals that we have lost through the state of capture. What we are saying is that there needs to be an improvement on the current generation available.
Now, we are speaking of the unbundling and the unbundling; we need to focus on the issue itself. It has started in 1998 when we delivered the White Paper. The issue of the National Development Plan, NDP, that empowers us to deal with the Integrated Resource and Resilience Planning, IRRP plan that was adopted by the Cabinet.
Now, the issue of transmission, what we want to say as the committee is that, the issue of privatisation, we are not going to privatise, FF Plus, you can do whatever, you can scream all you want. We are very clear and we are going to save Eskom.
And I want to tell and want to say to the department and the Ministry that we need a reliable source of energy, resolve operational issues and resolve cost issues and resolution on the debt issue.
While we are dealing with the issue of the mineral and energy mix ... [Time expired.] as the ANC we support, no to privatisation. [Applause.]
Division demanded.
The House divided.