One of the enduring mysteries of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s first full term in office is how he has utterly failed to sell off SAA despite practically announcing it as a done deal in his speeches. The start of the Great Ramaphosa Reforms it was not. 

And now it never will be. In literally the last weeks of his long career, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan pulled out of the deal on Wednesday. When he goes after the May 29 election his department is likely — perhaps not immediately — to be wound up and discarded. Its state-owned enterprises (SOEs), among them Eskom and Transnet, would then be returned (only the ANC could think this madness is sensible) to the departments they originally belonged to. ..

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