WHEN does a parastatal become a parasite? When it starts sucking your blood to fund its monopoly practices.
We, the tax-paying public of South Africa, have paid over billions of rands to our parastatals, Denel, SAA, Transnet and Eskom over decades.
In exchange we have got ourselves expensive and frequently uncomfortable air travel, high transportation costs and an unstable electricity supply that soaks up ever more public money.
Instead of prioritising the management of these enterprises and introducing competitive practices and the sorts of efficiencies that private companies need to survive, government appears tolerant of the mess they are making.
Take SAA: It has sucked up billions in taxpayer cash, laid off workers and increased its fare prices exponentially. It has an acting CEO with no sign of any interest in making a permanent appointment.
Then there’s Transnet which has had no CEO for several months. Apparently this appointment is not a priority and the corporation can run itself. Why they bothered with this position in the past is a mystery.
Don’t forget Denel, which is still trying to sell the Rooivalk with no success.
Then there’s the circus at Eskom. CEO Jacob Maroga resigned, then he didn’t, then Chairman Bobby Godsell quit.
Where is the Minister of Public Enterprises, Barbara Hogan? The uncomfortable eggs she has been sitting on have hatched and the little velociraptors are starting to tear the nest apart.
She needs to get a clear mandate from Cabinet and pull these operations into line before they implode.
If she can’t do it, she should make way for someone who can.

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1. When Hogan is wrong, she is right
2. Now it’s goodbye Bobby, hello Jacob. Eskom runs a tight circus
3. A shocking peek inside the parastatal gravy train
4. Eskom surprised by arrival of winter
5. Zuma tears a strip off senior ministers