**STATE OWNED ENTERPRISES: ** The looming question is not whether our state-owned enterprises can be salvaged, but rather who will finally find the courage to confront those architects of recurring failure.
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It is rather unsettling to watch politicians applaud annual reports while I'm standing in the dark watching on my smartphone.
South Africans have become accustomed to two versions of reality. One arrives neatly bound in glossy annual reports filled with photographs of smiling executives, colourful graphs, carefully chosen words like resilience, sustainability, stakeholder value and transformation. The other arrives when a pensioner waits three weeks for electricity to return. When commuters spend hours stranded because locomotives no longer run. Municipalities cannot supply water, and ports stand still while neighbouring economies move ahead.
One reality is printed. The other is lived. The disturbing question is not why our State-Owned Enterprises are failing. It is why so many people continue to benefit from that failure. State-Owned Enterprises were never intended to become investment vehicles for political networks. They were built as economic engines.
Eskom was created to electrify a nation. Transnet to move its economy. Denel to strengthen strategic capability. PRASA to transport ordinary workers. The South African Post Office to connect communities. SAA to represent a country abroad. Each existed for one purpose. To serve the public. Today many appear trapped inside another mission altogether. To protect those managing the decline.
The numbers tell a painful story. Eskom's debt has climbed beyond R400 billion. Billions have been transferred from taxpayers to keep the lights flickering. Transnet's operational failures have cost the South African economy hundreds of billions through delayed exports, congested ports, and crippled freight movement. The South African Post Office entered business rescue after years of mounting losses. Thousands of employees lost their livelihoods. South African Airways survived only after repeated government bailouts amounting to tens of billions of rand before emerging as a much smaller airline.
Every bailout begins with the same promise. This time will be different. The taxpayer has become South Africa's most loyal shareholder. The only shareholder who never receives dividends. Only demands for more capital. Meanwhile another pattern quietly repeats itself. Performance declines. Auditors raise concerns and Parliament asks difficult questions. The media reports another scandal.
Yet executive remuneration often remains astonishingly resilient. Bonuses appear. Retention incentives appear. Golden handshakes appear. One begins to wonder whether failure has become the safest career path in South African public administration. Imagine any private business rewarding executives after losing customers, market share and billions in revenue. Investors would revolt. Boards would resign. Chief executives would be replaced. Yet within parts of the public sector, explanations often replace accountability. Failure becomes a communications exercise. Not a leadership consequence.
Even more troubling is what happens inside these organisations. Every institution eventually produces people who ask uncomfortable questions. Accountants, compliance officers, internal auditors, and ordinary employees who still believe policies mean what they say. Many discover something that simply does not add up. A shady contract. A rushed procurement process with missing deliverables. They watch a consultant earning millions while projects collapse. They speak. That is usually when their problems begin.
South Africa has witnessed repeated allegations across both government departments and State-Owned Enterprises where whistleblowers describe intimidation, disciplinary action and career destruction. Not every allegation proves true. Many deserve proper investigation. That is precisely the point. Independent investigation. Not internal theatre. Far too often, investigations appear less interested in discovering facts than identifying who disrupted organisational harmony. The question quietly changes. Not what happened but who exposed it. The whistleblower slowly becomes the problem. The accused becomes the victim.
The institution speaks about culture. Trust. Alignment and professional conduct. Soon the conversation is no longer about corruption. It is about behavioural concerns and workplace relationships. The disease is hidden for a while. Only the messenger remains. Corporate language has perfected the art of disguising institutional decay. Words become anaesthetic. Transformation. Strategic repositioning. Business optimisation. And the list goes on.
One could read certain annual reports and conclude these organisations are flourishing. Then load shedding arrives. Ports freeze. Railways stop. Water systems collapse.
The South African public has learned an uncomfortable lesson. Annual reports increasingly describe intentions. Citizens experience outcomes. Those are not always the same thing.
There is another silence rarely discussed. How much public money has been spent defending labour disputes that should never have existed? Across South Africa's public institutions, millions of rand have been consumed through legal battles, disciplinary hearings, settlements and reinstatements following findings of unfair dismissal. Some employees eventually return to work. Others receive compensation. Some never recover professionally despite winning.
The taxpayer funds both sides. The lawyers. The investigations. The settlements. Then the organisation publishes another commitment to ethical leadership. No annual report truly captures the human cost. The marriage destroyed. The depression hidden behind professional smiles. The children watching a parent leave home each morning with nowhere to work. The reputation that never fully recovers. Wrongful dismissals rarely become headline achievements. Yet they consume enormous public resources. The executives responsible often continue uninterrupted.
Perhaps the greatest irony is this. South Africa possesses no shortage of policies. Our legislation governing public finance, procurement, labour relations and corporate governance is among the most comprehensive anywhere. The problem has never been the absence of rules. It has been the selective application of consequences. Accountability delayed becomes accountability denied. Oversight without enforcement becomes public theatre. Governance without courage becomes decoration.
This is not an attack on every public servant. Thousands report to work every day attempting to keep failing systems alive despite shrinking budgets, political interference and impossible expectations. Many executives genuinely serve with integrity. Many board members ask difficult questions. Many auditors perform remarkable work. They deserve recognition. But integrity trapped inside a compromised system cannot rescue institutions forever. Eventually systems overwhelm individuals.
The public also bears responsibility. We have become experts at outrage. Every scandal dominates headlines. Every commission produces volumes. Every report creates temporary anger. Then another scandal arrives. The previous one quietly disappears. Institutional memory becomes astonishingly short. Public fatigue becomes the greatest ally of institutional failure. Perhaps the most dangerous phrase in South African governance is not corruption. It is business as usual. Those three words have normalised decline.
We no longer ask why trains fail. We ask when. We no longer ask why electricity disappears. We ask how long. We no longer ask why another executive remains after repeated failures. We ask who will replace them. Expectations have fallen alongside performance. That may be the greatest victory of all. Not financial theft. Psychological theft. The theft of national expectation.
Real reform will require something annual reports cannot manufacture. Consequences. Boards must answer for measurable outcomes. Executive remuneration must reflect public performance rather than contractual entitlement. Independent investigations must protect truth rather than careers. Whistleblowers should become national assets, not organisational enemies. Parliamentary oversight must extend beyond televised hearings into enforceable action. Above all, South Africa needs a cultural shift where leadership once again carries risk. Leadership without consequences is management. Leadership with accountability becomes public service.
Until then, the pattern will repeat. Another glossy report. Another strategic vision. Another turnaround plan. Another bailout. Another bonus. Another whistleblower. Another inquiry. Another apology. The country deserves better than carefully managed decline. State-owned enterprises were never meant to become sanctuaries where failure is rewarded and honesty is professionally hazardous. They were built to carry the hopes of a nation.
The question is no longer whether they can be rebuilt. The question is who will finally have the courage to hold the architects of repeated failure accountable. Because when collapse becomes profitable, the hyenas no longer wait outside the gates. They have already taken seats in the boardroom.
*Reverend Lionel Jean Michel is a Johannesburg-based journalist, thought leader, and communications strategist. *
