Pretoria – The Inter-Ministerial Committee on State Owned Companies (SOC) Reform has given Cabinet progress reports on the work it has done to ensure that all state owned entities are efficiently run and financially viable.
The SOC reform committee, chaired by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, updated Cabinet on its progress at the executive’s two-day meeting this week.
The work of the reform committee emanates from the implementation of Cabinet endorsed recommendations from the 2010 Presidential Review Commission of SOCs.
“A suite of decisions was taken to pursue the central policy objective of strengthening SOCs to enable them to meet their developmental objectives,” said Cabinet in a statement on Thursday following its meeting.
Decisions taken by Cabinet include:
- Cabinet endorsed a Private Sector Participation framework for infrastructure delivery, which will guide collaboration between SOCs and the private sector;
- Cabinet adopted the guideline for the remuneration and incentive standards for directors of SOEs;
- Cabinet endorsed the broad thrust of a guide for the appointment of boards and executive officers, for which, the Department of Public Service and Administration will undertake a consultation process with provinces and municipalities, before Cabinet approval;
- The first draft of a new government shareholder policy was recommended for further consultation. This will culminate in the promulgation of an over-arching SOC legislation, and
- National Treasury developed a proposal for determining and costing developmental mandates of state enterprises. The introduction of this approach will help streamline commercial and non-commercial activities of SOCs.
“These [decisions] better position the SOCs to contribute towards the implementation of the National Development Plan, building infrastructure, growing the economy, expanding industry, helping develop high-end skills, creating jobs and advancing other transformation objectives,” Cabinet said. – SAnews.gov.za
