South Africa plans to set up a commission, chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa, to coordinate the country’s state-owned companies. It replaces an earlier plan to place the largest of these companies under a single holding company.
Maropene Ramokgopa, Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, said the commission would review a national strategy setting out what role state firms should play. It would also try to ensure the state acts as a consistent owner, standardise governance across entities, improve performance monitoring, and reduce duplication by restructuring or merging entities where needed.
The commission will combine features of the state-ownership models used in China and Norway. Ramokgopa said it could be set up relatively quickly through presidential regulations rather than new legislation, and that a holding company could still be created later if necessary.
The withdrawn National State Enterprises Bill would have created a state-owned holding company, State Asset Management SOC Ltd. The state would have been its sole shareholder, and shareholdings in major state companies would have moved to it in phases. The aim was to separate the state’s roles as owner, regulator and policymaker. Parliament never processed the bill, and it was withdrawn last month. Ramokgopa said circumstances had changed significantly since it was drafted, and that it had to return to cabinet after consultations rather than simply be amended.
The change is the latest shift in how the state manages its companies. The Department of Public Enterprises, which oversaw Eskom, Transnet, Denel, Alexkor, the South African Forestry Company and others, was closed in March 2025. Its companies were moved to the relevant line ministries. Earlier proposals to list some state firms on the JSE or to privatise them did not progress.
Oversight is under pressure because of the scale of public money involved. A National Treasury briefing to Parliament in February 2024 showed that government had allocated about R325bn to six state companies since 2020. The largest commitment was R254bn in debt relief for Eskom under the Eskom Debt Relief Act. South African Airways received R11.5bn, the Land Bank R7bn, Denel R3.4bn and the Post Office R2.4bn. Transnet received a R47bn government guarantee in late 2023.
Many of these companies have suffered from mismanagement and weak finances, and some depend on Treasury support to keep operating. Eskom, Transnet and the South African National Roads Agency are among the companies whose performance affects the wider economy, through electricity supply, freight logistics and road funding.
While the commission is being set up, the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation is preparing reforms. These include guidelines for board appointments and executive pay at state companies, and a framework for reducing the number of state entities.
The government has not said who else will sit on the commission or when it will start work.