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Private sector has hand in state entity failures, says SACP Karl Gernetzky, Business Day, Johannesburg, 1 December 2014 Undue influence of private business was a destabilising force affecting SA's financially embattled state-owned enterprises, the South African Communist Party (SACP) suggested on Sunday. The failings playing out at many of SA's most strategic national assets were hobbling them in the important developmental role they were supposed to play and often had as much to do with the failings of the private sector, the party said. The SACP held its annual year-end central committee meeting this weekend. It resolved to broaden its recruitment at workplaces, support local economic development and push for further changes in the make-up of SA's financial sector, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said. It promised to renew its push for state involvement in developing the economy, which comes as several state-owned companies are in crisis, and under the strain of politically driven appointments of board members and executives. This includes South African Airways and power utility Eskom. As the global economy slowed, it exposed the weakness of SA's consumer and resource-driven economy. "There were also widespread indications of money politics at play, and even of business having a direct hand into appointments into key positions within the state," Mr Nzimande said. Jeremy Cronin in a suit.jpg SACP first deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin said on Sunday many state-owned-companies, such as Transnet, continued to function effectively. Challenges facing Eskom should not allow "avaricious forces ... to privatise and piratise the critical energy sector". Eskom's achievements in electricity access, as part of its "developmental mandate", were unlikely to have been reached had it been privatised. Eskom had electrified more households (7-million) in the last 20 years than in the last century. Both Eskom and the minister of energy had been frank over the entity's own shortcomings, which included delays in construction at Medupi and Kusile. "Many of those problems have not been caused by Eskom but by transnational companies that have let us down very seriously." These included Hitachi and Murray & Roberts, Mr Cronin said. While declining to speak directly on PetroSA, Mr Cronin said there were continued demands from businesspeople to have a say in board appointments. This made it difficult for state-owned companies to reconcile the need to raise private capital, and therefore have a board, with a developmental mandate. "Some of the boards are populated, to put it brutally, by BEE (black economic empowerment) entrepreneurs," he said. Last week the appointment of Tshepo Kgadima as chairman of state oil company PetroSA was rescinded after a storm erupted over allegations of fraud and corruption made against him. From: http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2014/12/01/private-sector-has-hand -in-state-entity-failures-says-sacp -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
