The future ownership or shareholding of state-owned enterprises will be housed under one company instead of being fragmented through government departments. This is aimed at improving oversight of the state-owned enterprises.

The government is pressing ahead with the plan to establish a company that will hold the shareholding of all state-owned enterprises (SOEs) -- from Eskom to Transnet -- aimed at improving oversight of the companies.

A centralised shareholder model was proposed by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Thursday, in which the ownership or shareholding of SOEs is housed under one company instead of being fragmented through government departments.

For example, Eskom, SAA, Transnet and others currently report to the Department of Public Enterprises, while the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) reports to the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies. Ramaphosa wants SOEs to report to one holding company instead of reporting to various and fragmented government departments.

This is the direction recently adopted by Malaysia, which has established a company that holds all the equity or shareholding in SOEs, and has a view of selling some of the entities to private sector players. A similar direction has been taken by South Africa,...