South Africa's parastatals suck

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JOHANNESBURG - The idea of a combine harvester running amok on overdoses of avgas has always been appealing, but no longer competes with the kind of extraordinary entertainment hurled out by countless clowns at South Africa's parastatals, who seem to run on constant ingestions of rodenticide.

Eskom, the monopoly electricity generator, is being ratted out several times a day, with no firm clues surfacing as to the whereabouts of apparent CEO Jacob Maroga, last seen winging it with his cape high above Megawatt Park.

Just today, the board of Armscor reportedly asked CEO Sipho Thomo to resign, thanks to the grace of Armscor chairman Popo Molefe, addressing a parliamentary portfolio committee. Thomo reportedly said "I'm not planning to resign. I have no reason to resign". Armscor may or may not be a parastatal - it ranks as "the officially appointed acquisition organisation" for national defence, but the sense of rodenticide is there, all right. Was Thomo caught with his hands in the . . . ratjar?

But is Armscor a parastatal, and does anyone care? Either way, there is a sense that nobody really wants these parastatal and similar type jobs; Transnet, one of the country's most important entities, has an acting chairman (Geoff Everingham), an acting CEO (Chris Wells), and an acting chief financial officer (Anoj Singh). What an act. At Transnet Freight, one of the country's erstwhile treasures, the CEO, Siyabonga Gama, is out on suspension facing allegations of . . . well, you guessed it.

At South African Airways, there is an acting CEO in the form of Chris Smyth, after the previous CEO, Khaya Ngqula was fired following allegations of . . . you guessed it. Ngqula, a sidekick of former cabinet minister Alec "Wingnut" Erwin, was paid millions, naturally, and millions, to walk.

At Denel, the parastatal that makes evil things that can kill lots of people, there is at least a full time CEO in the form of Talib Sadik. Rather than a certificate of competence from the French Foreign Legion, Sadik is a chartered accountant, which seems fitting, given that Denel has only once made an annual profit, a pathetic R24m, in the past 10 years. Over the period Denel's combined losses aggregate at R5.36bn. But it may be diversifying out of the armaments business, with a recent order received from the Angolan police force for 80 dogs.

There are smaller parastatals, such as Alexcor, the diamond digger, which once again posted a loss in its latest financial year, along with an emphasis of matter on its ability to continue in business. There is a however a profitable miner in the form of Foskor, effectively a subsidiary of the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation. While so-called BEE (black economic empowerment) laws do not apply to the state, the IDC is selling 26% of Foskor to BEE groupings, with 100% of the finance provided by . . . the IDC. Go figure.

Chaos and atavism so grossly apparent at one wretched parastatal after another has long spread the carrot of rodenticide ingestion to other critical areas. More than three months ago, Pam Yako, director general of the water affairs ministry, was placed on (fully paid, naturally), special leave by her minister, pending an investigation into allegations of . . . take a guess . . . financial irregularities and mismanagement. Since then a vacuum, for one of the most important jobs in the country, overseeing the vicious disaster of a R70bn backlog in the maintenance and building of new water infrastructure. Let's not also get into the pending collapse of sewage farms, and slicked shittrains the size of crude oil tankers.

As for Portia Molefe, director general of public enterprises, she announced early in September that she would be going walkabouts at the end of this month. This, of course, is the ministry that oversees state-owned enterprises, such as Eskom. So far, no replacement for Molefe has been named. While you still can, rush off to cash in on specials being offered on rodenticide, and donate it to the Rodenticide Humane Society for State-Owned Enterprises.