Business should run SOEs

I quote from an article in the Sunday Times of December 9: “The cash-strapped SA Navy is literally falling apart and has run out of money to keep its vessels at sea.”

Of the three submarines and four frigates purchased in the R60bn arms deal, none of them could be deployed in the 2017/18 financial year, “resulting in reliance on three 40-yearold vessels”.

It is no longer a question of “if” or “when” our government will succeed in managing an entity successfully. For heaven’s sake, if they cannot supply toilets or books at schools, how can anyone expect them to operate a navy, or an airline, or a hospital, or a broadcaster, or a railway, or an electricity supplier, or an education department, or clean water, or agriculture, or a bank?

And the next massive failure on the horizon is the National Health Insurance (NHI). Please no, it can’t happen, it is doomed to fail. Privatise these institutions and run them as businesses, not as sheltered employment for thieves and incompetents. The taxpayers and the millions of destitute South Africans deserve better.

Come now, Mr President, future state appointments should be on merit only, and let the government stick to what it knows best, whatever that may be, and leave the rest to be managed by competents, before the good ship SA runs aground.

John Perry Hartbeespoort