SIKONATHI MANTSHANTSHA: SA’s rocky highway to IMF
Failure to save SA’s state-owned companies would put us on a rocky highway to the IMF
The latest changes in the leadership of state-owned companies Denel, SAA and Eskom are only the starting point in a long, complex and necessary exercise to rebuild strategic state institutions that were destroyed for private profit. The project’s measure of success must not only be whether it restores these assets of the people to good operational health, but whether it helps SA avoid the need for International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans. These companies, together with the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), the SABC, PetroSA and others, have all been looted to the point of bankruptcy by those tasked with managing them over the past 10 years. To keep them going, government has been forced to throw billions of rand in borrowed money at them, which has only benefited the corrupt politicians and leaders of the organisations while providing little pay-off for the country. The result is that all of us are paying more tax, direct and indirect. SA is also paying more to borrow from the cap...
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