Chairperson, hon members, I would like to start by commending the ordinary men and women at Eskom who have managed to tough it out under trying conditions. They have done us proud in a difficult environment that includes a dithering shareholder for many years; a shareholder unable to inject sufficient capital into the business due to pressing and competing needs; a need to expand the business under an international economic meltdown; a large percentage of its clientele being unable to pay adequately for electricity due to poverty and unemployment; bitter complaints when the lights go out; environmental groups screaming at the company not to do this or that; climate change considerations that impact on options to expand the capacity of the company to provide sufficient power; and the demand by society and the shareholder to provide electricity for those still outside the grid.
Yet, wherever you go to Eskom sites, you will find men and women who are doing their best to keep the lights on. I think these men and women in their thousands deserve our support and appreciation. [Applause.]
Azapo supports a funding regime for the Eskom building programme: that is, a combination of capital injection by the state, borrowing from financial markets, and a once-off tax. Although it would be preferable if loans were raised internally, the loan of about R29 billion to Eskom from the World Bank is, nevertheless, welcome. Although some of us are not friends of the World Bank, under the circumstances, we think we should grit our teeth. The loan will go some way towards cushioning the hard-pressed consumers against steep tariff increases.
The remarks we make about the good men and women at Eskom apply, with the necessary modifications, to the ordinary good men and women at SA Airways, SA Express, Denel, Transnet, Alexkor, Broadband Infraco, Safcol and the pebble bed modular reactor. Owing to limited time, we are unable to detail the circumstances at each one of them, but we know, in general, the conditions are the same.
In a country like ours, with formidable problems relating to poverty, skills deficits and general underdevelopment, state-owned enterprises are correctly understood to be tools in the hands of the state to spearhead development. They should align their operations in a way that would assist projects and programmes run by the relevant government departments and generally support government developmental policies. They are supposed to support research and development, and act as catalysts in economic development.
However, state-owned enterprises, SOEs, can only play this role if they are appropriately funded and competently managed. State-owned enterprises in perpetual crisis cannot play this role. Instead, they become a drain on the fiscus, and an arena for destructive battles.
Generally speaking, most of our SOEs are not in good shape. Some of the reasons for this state of affairs derive from inadequate funding by the state, frequent changes of instructions with the frequent changes of ministers, and a high turnover of senior leaders or managers. These rapid changes in instructions and personnel rob the SOEs of institutional memory, stability and sustained efforts to bring plans to fruition.
Being the most unequal society in the world, it seems we have no choice but to strive for strong SOEs so that they may play a pivotal role in creating jobs, supporting economic growth, and improving the delivery of service to our citizens. However, for that to happen we must be prepared to fund them adequately and manage them properly. We are not talking about SOEs that just get by, but about SOEs with strong balance sheets so that they can play a vigorous role in the economy and in the development of our people. Thank you. [Applause.]