South Africa intends to establish a commission chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa to coordinate the work of its state-owned firms after shelving plans to place them under the auspices of a holding company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new panel will review a national strategy that outlines the role firms should play and ensure that the government exercises ownership in a coherent and professional manner, Maropene Ramokgopa, a minister in the Presidency, said in response to questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will also standardise and strengthen governance practices, improve monitoring, and facilitate and coordinate the rationalisation and restructuring of the entities to eliminate duplication and improve efficiency, she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa has scores of state entities, including power utility Eskom, logistics company Transnet, and the South African National Roads Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A number of them have been dogged by mismanagement and financial problems, leaving them reliant on government funding to survive, which has spurred calls for improved oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of those biggest firms fell under the Department of Public Enterprises, but it was disbanded in March 2025, and control was transferred to the relevant line ministries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A draft law was presented to parliament in 2024 proposing the establishment of a management company to oversee all state firms, but the legislation wasn\u2019t processed and was withdrawn last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCircumstances have changed considerably\u201d since the law was first drafted, Ramokgopa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce the bill had gone through stakeholder engagements and all the political parties had been consulted, we realised that the bill could not simply be rewritten; we needed to take it back to cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government previously suggested that some state companies could be listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange or privatised, but the process never gained traction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new panel, which will be a hybrid of the type of structures established by China and Norway to oversee their state entities, can be established relatively quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the interim, the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation is working on reform proposals for the state companies, including drawing up appointment and remuneration guidelines, and a framework for their rationalisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur Constitution allows for the president to directly chair a commission using regulations, rather than the long process of creating a law,\u201d Ramokgopa said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If necessary, we can still create a management company down the road should we need to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa is planning to establish a new commission overseeing state-owned companies, chaired by Cyril Ramaphosa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":872112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2107849439893143996","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2229494907870908","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17960864979015888","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1293,1164,23357],"class_list":["post-878807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-eskom","tag-ramokgopa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878807"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878816,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878807\/revisions\/878816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}