STATE OWNED ENTERPRISES: The looming question is not whether our state-owned enterprises can be salvaged, but rather who will finally find the courage to confront those architects of recurring failure.
It is rather unsettling to watch politicians applaud annual reports while I'm standing in the dark watching on my smartphone.
South Africans have become accustomed to two versions of reality. One arrives neatly bound in glossy annual reports filled with photographs of smiling executives, colourful graphs, carefully chosen words like resilience, sustainability, stakeholder value and transformation. The other arrives when a pensioner waits three weeks for electricity to return. When commuters spend hours stranded because locomotives no longer run. Municipalities cannot supply water, and ports stand still while neighbouring economies move ahead.
One reality is printed. The other is lived. The disturbing question is not why our State-Owned Enterprises are failing. It is why so many people continue to benefit from that failure. State-Owned Enterprises were never intended to become investment vehicles for political networks. They were built as economic engines.
Eskom was created to electrify a nation. Transnet to move its economy. Denel to strengthen strategic capability. PRASA to transport ordinary workers. The South African Post Office to connect communities. SAA to represent a country abroad. Each existed for one purpose. To serve the public. Today many appear trapped inside another mission altogether. To protect those managing the decline.
