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.