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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: NATIONAL STATE ENTERPRISES BILL
- 29 June 2024
- In the Spotlight
- SA Legal Academy
The composition of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s new Cabinet will influence decisions on the revival or withdrawal of Bills still before South Africa’s sixth democratic Parliament when it rose for the 29 May 2024 elections. They include the National State Enterprises Bill.
Released in draft form in September 2023 for public comment, the Bill was tabled in Parliament in January 2024. However, the previous Parliament’s National Assembly Committee on Public Works & Infrastructure chose not to begin processing it. As a result, if revived the Bill will be considered from scratch by the incoming committee.
According to a memorandum on the Bill’s objects, it seeks to address:
- the ‘excessive politicisation of board and senior management appointments at state-owned companies (SOCs)
- the ‘weak co-ordination’ of efforts intended to achieve national development objectives and sector-specific goals
- ‘a deficit of the required professional skills’, and
- the need for a ‘sound’ approach to corporate governance.
To that end, once passed, enacted and operationalised the proposed new piece of legislation will, among other things:
- enable the development of a ‘national strategy’ on state-owned enterprises
- establish the State Asset Management SOC Limited (SAMSOC), with the state as its sole shareholder
- consolidate the state’s shareholdings in strategic state-owned enterprises by introducing ‘a centralised shareholder model’ (as recommended by the Presidential State-owned Enterprises Council), and
- phase in these enterprises as subsidiaries of SAMSOC.
The new legislation is also expected to go some way towards ensuring a more appropriate balance between the developmental and commercial objectives of these SOCs.
Articles on the draft Bill in Polity (F W de Klerk Foundation) and Daily Maverick criticised it for:
- ‘stif(ling) the potential for private sector participation or the exploration of public-private partnerships’, and
- ‘fail(ing) to address the deep-rooted issues of corruption and state capture’.
It is not clear whether or not the version eventually tabled in Parliament adequately deals with these concerns.
- Bill
- SA Legal Academy report on the draft Bill
- FW de Klerk Foundation article in Polity
- Daily Maverick article
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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