SA's private sector is still plagued by racism, suggests Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba. The minister earlier addressed the second and final day of the Black Business Summit, on Wednesday.
“Another consideration is whether the private sector can be trusted to have the intrinsic interest of transformation at heart such as in our case, where racism still prevails particularly in business and you have a few established companies monopolising the infrastructure,” Gigaba said.
The behaviour of a range of private companies, including some privatised state owned enterprise, was providing plenty of fuel for the nationalisation debate, according to Gigaba.
He also questioned the social responsibility commitments of private enterprises.
It was clear, Gigaba said, that the instinct of many private enterprises in SA and globally, was to turn to the state for help when times were tough but not to pass on to the economy any benefits they ultimately realised during good times.
“In this context, does it make sense for us to privatise national assets? Does it make sense for us to allow foreign multi-nationals to take control of strategic industrial capabilities?” he asked.
Gigaba said there was little doubt that government would be “extremely cautious” in the future around who it trusted with the ownership of strategic national assets.
Government recognised that some state-owned enterprises were not as efficient as they needed to be in key areas of operations, the minister noted. He also added they were aware some public companies were not investing at a rate that was needed in order to make up for historic infrastructure gaps, and that some were not transforming fast enough. - I-Net Bridge