ANC gives greenlight to plans to scrap public enterprises department

Delegates at the ANC national 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 ANC head of the economic transformation committee on discussions that ensued at the party’s national conference at Nasrec, south of Joburg.

Minister of human settlements, Mmamoloko Kubayi said there was a general agreement that the likes of Eskom must be moved to the department of mineral resources & energy while Transnet would have to 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 will be announced on January 6, 2023 after the second leg of the national conference which will be convened in a hybrid fashion.

This means that public enterprises may be as good as buried soon, depending on how long the process to move the individual SOEs to line departments take.

The Sunday Times reported in May this year that government was working on a new bill to establish a holding company that will oversee major state-owned enterprises.

The SOE bill on shareholder models, which is in the drafting phase, is a product of several processes undertaken by government in an attempt to improve their viability. The bill is expected to be informed by recommendations of the presidential review committee headed by Riah Phiyega and the presidential SOE council.

“The thing that was of more emphasis is that the progressive review of SOEs is important but more importantly is that SOEs need to be moved to line departments,” said Kubayi.

“This mandate says for efficiency and for ease of reference conference is saying we want to see SOEs being in their line departments for policy, coordination and implementation that is smooth.

“It was to say we have had this discussion as conference before, we want this decision to be implemented.”

The governing party delegates also affirmed that the country has no choice but to transition from coal-generated energy to renewables.

However, said Kubayi, conference cautioned that this must not be done in a manner that will plunge places like Mpumalanga which produces most of the country’s coal into an economic and unemployment pandemonium.

“The Mpumalanga province has made a very substantive input on the issues of their concerns as you know have a lot of coal mines. They are not saying we must not transition but that the pace at which we move must not leave behind workers of those mines and communities,” said Kubayi.

“ What conference and delegates acknowledge is that we cannot be oblivious to the fact that climate change is here. The issue is to do the transition in a manner that does not compromise our development, lives and livelihoods of those that are affected. The call is for a balanced approach”

The ANC has also insisted that the SA Reserve Bank must be freed from private shareholding,  and for its mandate to be tweaked to include employment creation and poverty .alleviation.

Delegates emphasised that the tampering with the SARB must not be done in a reckless manner that will shoot inflation out of control and collapse the economy.

Kubayi further added that discussions in the ETC commission also emphasised the need for a Basic Income Grant. This despite a lack of being unable to indicate where the money to fund this item would  come from.

Said Kubayi: “There is a need for a Basic Income Grant, what must be finalised is how much it is because currently there are many proposals which in the implementation, government will have to find mechanisms to fund that.”