Hon Chair, it is good to follow a fiery hon Morapela from the EFF. Hon Chair and hon Minister, firstly let me congratulate you on your appointment. The Minister and I have worked together before in different capacities and I want to assure you, hon Minister, that you will certainly get the support of the IFP in managing this challenging portfolio and the task that lies ahead.
Let me say, hon Chair and colleagues, that as we stand the Department of Public Enterprises exists. It has a particular mandate to fulfil. Whether that mandate will be reduced as we move forward with the taking away of Broadband Infraco and other state-owned companies, we will see and we will engage with it as we move forward.
I think our responsibility as members of this House, and as Members of Parliament and the committee in particular, is to ensure that the executive head, who is the Minister, fulfils her responsibility of oversight over these state-owned companies. As the chairperson of our committee indicated, we are, I would say, in a transition phase. I am new to this committee, as many other members are. We have not had the opportunity to engage fully with the department on the roles and responsibilities it has. But you can bet my bottom dollar - and I do not have many dollars - that we will certainly be engaging very vigorously in the committee and with you, hon Minister, to ensure that the state-owned companies, as they stand, fulfil their mandate and the development goals that we as government have set out.
We need to ensure that there is proper financial management in these state- owned companies. The type of financial management found in some of these state-owned companies leaves a lot to be desired. The lack of governance in some of these state-owned companies leaves a lot to be desired. To that end, hon Minister, we would like to know whether the board, the executive and the management of these state-owned companies are in sync with each other in terms of the goals and the mandate of the particular state-owned company. I don't believe they are, and we see that in respect of SAA and some of the other state-owned companies, where you have different views and conflict between the board and the management of these state-owned companies.
I do not have time to deal individually with the seven state-owned companies that you listed, but let us talk about SAA. Let us talk about what we should do, going forward. Should the state continue to own these companies? Should we not think of innovative ways of bringing in ohter parties? Should we not also consider bringing in partners? As a shareholder, we have an opportunity to bring in partners while maintaining majority shareholding in these companies. We could have better governance then, because we know that governance in the private sector is, to a large extent, much better than governance in state-owned companies. We need to examine these things as we move forward.
A few years ago, we bailed out SAA to the tune of R2 billion because we wanted to have an airline during 2010. We were hosting the Fifa World Cup and we needed the world to know that South Africa had an airline company. Can we continue to pour taxpayers' money into these companies without really going to the crux of whether we need them or whether we need to invite other partners to make them sustainable, moving forward? We will support this budget, hon Minister, but in this portfolio committee we will continue to interrogate everything that happens. Thank you.