National Treasury is working with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to reform their financial and operational situations. As a start, Treasury is not prepared to give SOEs more bailouts. It is, however, willing to extend the government guarantee programme.

I'll stick my neck out and defend the need for the government's ownership of the economy.

Put differently, I believe in the need for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and for the government to use them as vehicles to control the economy, and, in turn, pursue South Africa's developmental goals.

Cue the trashing of this writer. But I beg your indulgence while I attempt to make my point.

The year 2004 was a turning point for the SOE universe in South Africa. This was when the ANC -- led by Thabo Mbeki -- was aggressive in targeting SOEs to drive economic growth and job creation and provide essential services such as electricity, water, transport and others. This would emulate the SOE-centric policies successfully implemented by the four Asian Tigers - Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

There was an understanding that South Africa's developmental goals couldn't be left to the private sector to achieve. Doing so could create private companies that were profit-driven and too dominant in the economy. This could lead to unfair labour practices and high prices, to the detriment of underprivileged consumers.

After all, the private sector doesn't exactly have an impeccable track record.

Various players in that...