PRIVATISATION OF PARASTATALS
JONNY STEINBERG: Mbeki kept nest eggs in one fragile basket
Is Thabo Mbeki the sort of person who harbours regrets? If so, does he wonder what SA would look like now had he implemented the privatisation programme he envisaged in the mid-1990s? The irony of his decision to reverse course is only now coming into view. Mbeki abandoned privatisation because he worried that if he sold the parastatals, the government would lose control over the trajectory of SA’s development. He surely did not imagine that keeping these companies in public hands would effectively pave the way for the theft of the country’s sovereignty by a single family. Mbeki’s original plans were far-reaching. Sectors earmarked for what was called "restructuring" included telecoms, minerals and energy, water and transport. The Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy, published in 1996, defined "restructuring" as the "the total sale of the asset, a partial sale to strategic equity partners or the sale of the asset with government retaining a strategic interest". At the ver...
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