Sihlalo, Ngqongqoshe nePhini likaNgqongqoshe, siyiNkatha yeNkululeko sijoyina ezinye ezinhlangano ngokukhalela umndeni wakwaMaluleka ngokushonelwa ngumfowabo kanye nakuKhongolose njengeqembu lakhe. (Translation of isiZulu paragraph follows.)
[Mr K P SITHOLE: Chairperson, Minister and Deputy Minister, as the IFP we are joining the other parties in sending our condolences to the Maluleka family on the passing away of their brother and to the ANC as his party.]
As the IFP we wish to use this opportunity to highlight how damaging the existence of the Department of Public Enterprises is to our fiscus, state and republic. There has long been the realisation that the very existence of this department is problematic and there have been projects, programmes, commissions, workshops and endless deliberations aimed at possibly doing away with it. All these are utterly unacceptable.
It is self-evident that the department makes no sense whatsoever. It is a huge waste of money and leads to the mismanagement of each of the relevant state-owned enterprises. It is retrograde to public enterprises and common sense alike. One should have the political will to abolish it without further procrastination.
Each of the state-owned enterprises must be moved to the line-function department with the relevant expertise, rather than having a department that must replicate expertise in transport, energy, mining, defence and all the other areas in which this department needs to have expertise.
It was reported recently that the government could be planning to bring the state-owned oil company Petro SA and the SA Broadcasting Corporation into the public enterprise fold. This is tantamount to moving from the sublime to the ridiculous. The IFP strongly opposes these movements, should they occur, and we reiterate our call for state-owned enterprises to be moved or, in these two cases, to remain in their line-function department.
This department is staffed with quality and competent experts who could enrich the relevant line-function department, some of which already have responsibility over state-owned enterprises that apartheid did not see fit to lump together into this absurd department.
The persistent state ownership of Denel and SA Airways should end. They must be privatised, because they have become great enemies of the public, the taxpayer and the Republic. SAA is singlehandedly destroying and undermining one of our most important industries, our tourism industry, while Denel has become a 20-year drag on our scarce resources, with no real social or public benefit.
Eskom, too, must be broken up into two complementing companies to reduce the massacre that the electricity monopoly is perpetrating on a daily basis, affecting our industries and families alike. Eskom has failed us and we are bearing the brunt of their failure, not only with the intermittent electricity supply, but also with the crippling electricity price increases to somewhere in the region of 6% per annum over the next five years. Thank you. [Applause.]