The Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan says those politicians and public servants involved in State Capture should be in orange overalls in order to avoid resistance to transform State-Owned Entities.
Gordhan was speaking at a lecture hosted by Wits School of Governance on Thursday. The theme of the lecture was “Reform and Governance of SOEs”.
Gordhan says for the transformation of State-Owned Entities must be subjected to ethical governance and not the malfeasance that has been largely associated with State Institutions.
He has also warned the country about the need to be vigilant against elites who want to fill their pockets at the expense of the benefit of the majority of people, adding that the State Capture is not yet over.
“It also seems there are people amongst us, and perhaps outside as well, who perhaps don’t want these SOEs to find themselves on the right track because they would like to explore the possibility of state capture version two.”
Gordhan says academics must do more in order to ensure that the current and dominant economic ideology of capitalism is analysed thoroughly in order to be able to address its shortcomings that perpetuate social and economic injustice.
“But today, there is poverty of analysis or there is poverty in communicating the analysis as to how capitalism is not ensuring inclusive growth, development in continents like Africa and that there is equity between nations in the globe.”
Gordhan on Eskom power stations
On the issue of Eskom, Gordhan said the government’s decision to build power stations was delayed because it was decided that the private sector should build them.
“One of the most challenging decisions at the time in the early 2000s was that there is no need for Eskom to build more power stations, instead private sector would come in and build power stations, after several years it became clear that private sector was not coming in because electricity tariffs were not attractive for profit, then the state said to Eskom, build power stations.”
