Tito Mboweni: Don’t make state ownership a religion
In an interview on Power FM the finance minister again questioned the logic of hanging on to loss-making state companies
Finance minister Tito Mboweni said a discussion must begin on whether the government needs to retain control of all the assets it owns given the poor state of the national finances. Mboweni has asked minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan for a list of non-core state assets and has been provided with an “extensive list”, he said while being interviewed and answering questions from callers on Power FM radio on Sunday night. “One should be careful not to elevate state ownership to a religion,” he said. Mboweni, a former Reserve Bank governor who took office in October, has repeatedly questioned the logic of holding onto loss-making state companies, raising the ire of the labour union allies of ANC that oppose privatisation. Plans to restructure state power company Eskom are already being opposed by unions. Mboweni said that the country should look toward merging its state-owned airlines to remove the need for duplicate boards and CEOs and could sell the explosives unit of state...
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