Mcebisi Jonas unplugged – Prescribed assets, Eskom, Tito’s blueprint and more…

It is not every day that a former Deputy Finance Minister in the ANC government publicly agrees with former DA leader Helen Zille. That is exactly what Mcebisi Jonas did when she said little would come right until the culture of corruption was defeated in government and its associated institutions. He argued that he did believe that the South African state, in partnership with the private sector, could take measures to turbo-charge the country out of its present troubles. In a conservation with Professor Mark Swilling of Stellenbosch University at the Cape Town Press Club, he said something had to be done fast.

By Donwald Pressly*

The first matter which immediately had to be settled was resolving the Eskom trouble. "My view is a very simple view. We … don't have (the luxury of) time. Government should come with (a plan) that transitions us quickly out of the mess we are in… both in terms of growth numbers and corruption." He identified Eskom – a power-supply monopoly – as the biggest problem facing South Africa at present. Owing to uncertainty, corruption and mismanagement, Eskom was at the brink "and with it our economy". Eskom's debt was almost R500bn. A further R160bn was needed to complete capital projects. One could not wait "for a bigger plan that you are going to draft." The first step in dealing with this was issuing a set of robust proposals "to get out of the mess as quickly as we can".

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