Nothing to show for billions spent on bailing out state companies, says DA

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DA MP Geordin Hill-Lewis was speaking on Wednesday during a parliamentary debate on the financial burden of sustaining unprofitable state-owned entities, and how the government can reappropriate the continual bailouts used to sustain these entities.

He said that over the past 12 years, the government has spent R192.5bn bailing out bankrupt state-owned companies . In addition to this, they have committed the government to a further R383.2bn in state guarantees, he said.

“We have paid for this all with mountains more debt, and what do we have to show for it? Transnet cannot run a railway network, and train tracks are being stolen from right in front of them. Eskom cannot produce enough electricity. SAA cannot fly. Denel is insolvent. The Land Bank has defaulted," he said.

He said one of the reasons was that the governing party sees itself and the state as the same thing and linked to this was the ANC’s historical core belief that it alone was the source of progress in society, and that it has a total monopoly on truth.He claimed the party no longer even tried to mount arguments in favour of the SOEs or make a case for why SAA should be bailed out, because they know it should not be.

 

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