Parliamentary Speeches
 

DEBATE ON VOTE 30: PUBLIC ENTERPRISE I was a member of the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprise between 1999 and 2001. In that period, the Eskom leadership made presentation to us about the need to build new power stations as generation capacity was likely to be overtaken by demand around 2008. It is now a known fact that the Government did not give Eskom permission to build new power stations, which was a big mistake. This has been acknowledged, regrets expressed and a public apology tendered by the Government at the highest level possible. Recriminations followed, intensified, especially with the advent of load shedding. Up to this day, recriminations are continuing. Eskom belongs to all of us, as a nation, and the service it provides is absolutely crucial for our economic activities, comfort and good health. Continued recriminations are now pointless. We should bite the bullet, as a nation, and provide this company with the resources it needs to build new power stations and maintain existing assets. This might be in the form of a modest tariff increase, coupled with a once off tax, an approach to the markets and investment by the shareholder. If we don’t do this we might in the future, rue the fact that we dithered when a decisive action was required. And the attraction with a once off tax is that it could target only those with the means to pay it. The capacity for research and development, as well as the engineering expertise in our state owned enterprise are not inconsiderable. They are capable of incubating new industries or spinning off new companies. All we need is to use the recently passed Intellectual Property Rights Derived From Publicly Funded Research Act, to protect and exploit as much IP as possible from research activities in our SOEs. For this to happen more effectively and efficiently, we need to soften the boundaries between the SOEs and the private sector, so as to promote more effortless collaboration among them. This is what other more successful nations the world over do. Going to the moon or space exploration in general, is an expensive business with very little direct commercial value. But the bigger value in such activities is in research, development and innovation, the generation of IP, which leads to new products, new industries and the development of human technological capacity. In our own case, we have seen the development of versatile engineers at Denel, who took part in the design and building of the Rooivalk helicopter, the same people participating in the building of the Southern African Large Telescope in Sutherland (the largest telescope in the Southern hemisphere) and the same people leading the work in design and building of South Africa’s first battery driven car. We will not, as a country, effectively tackle the trade deficit with the rest of the world as long as we export mainly raw materials and import almost all goods containing intellectual property. If we run our SOEs properly, fund them adequately and align their activities properly with our economic priorities, we will reap pleasing benefits. AZAPO supports Budget Vote 30. Thank You 23 Jun 2009 Parliamentary Speeches comments 0 Name: E-mail: (optional) Smile:          Remember Me | Forget Me Go Back Content Management Powered by CuteNews