Madam Speaker,
The Government of National Unity was born from the process of a democratic mandate from the people of South Africa, who told us, clearly, that no single party had done enough to govern alone.
That is the context in which this Presidency must operate, not just in name but in unity andpurpose too.
But, with collaboration comes accountability.
Your legacy, Mr President, will be determined in part by the future of our state-owned enterprises.
South African Airways has received close to R50 billion in bailouts. Eskom — by the end of this financial year — will have absorbed R496 billion in government support since 2008. Transnet, which dared to request a R61 billion bailout, was declined but quietly given a guarantee facility and billions more in structured support. Denel received nearly R9 billion. The Post Office received R10 billion. SANRAL received R47 billion. In total, South African taxpayers have forked over R521 billion propping up these entities.
Honourable Members, we must be honest on whether we will spend another half a trillion on floating State-owned entities or choose to relieve taxpayers.
Mr President,
Let us be honest about where we are.
SAA has “reported” a net profit of R155 million for its 2024/25 financial year. On the surface, this is encouraging. But aviation analysts have raised serious questions about the consistency of the figures, with concerns about four different profit numbers appearing in the same report and an audit opinion that Treasury itself would find alarming. A R30 million operating profit in an airline that received fifty billion rand from taxpayers is not yet a reason for a standing ovation. It is a reason for vigilant oversight.
Eskom’s situation is more complicated. While its finances have stabilised marginally, Treasury has been explicit: its finances remain weak and operational performance requires significant improvement. The R50 billion in restructured advances now replacing the original R70 billion debt relief package is not a gift — it is borrowed time. Eskom is expected to warn of potential renewed reliance on the National Treasury by 2028. The clock is ticking loudly.
And Transnet continues to fall short — with its recovery plan described by Treasury as needing to move faster. With rail freight volumes declining and port inefficiencies still bleeding billions from our export economy, this is not just a corporate problem. Every train that does not run is a mine that cannot export. Every container that sits on a quayside is a manufacturer losing a customer overseas.
Then there are our water boards.
By June of last year, municipal debt owed to South Africa’s water boards had reached R25.1 billion — R21.9 billion in principal and a further R3.2 billion in accrued interest. This is a 151% increase over five years. Thirty-four municipalities are currently in default. Boards like Magalies Water and Vaal Central Water have come close to complete collapse.
Yet, in municipality after municipality, grants are being returned to Treasury unspent.
Treasury has now begun withholding equitable share allocations from defaulting municipalities — an intervention that is legally sound but administratively uncomfortable
The Presidency cannot stand apart from this.
The Department of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation sits within this Presidency. It was created to be the control tower of government — to watch the instruments, read the trajectory, and call out when we are heading for the mountain. Too often, it has instead been an observation deck — a place from which we document, with considerable academic precision, the exact moment that things go wrong and then write a report about it.
We need that to change. When Transnet misses its recovery milestones, PME must not merely note it. When a water board is three-quarters from insolvency, PME must escalate with consequences. The Presidency already has a joint oversight dashboard being piloted with the Department of Water and Sanitation and COGTA to track municipal debt settlements. That is a welcome development. But a dashboard is only useful if someone is authorised to act on what it shows. Monitoring without consequence is just watching things fail in real time.
I urge the Presidency to ensure that Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation has the mandateand teeth to ensure accountability.
You cannot fix what you cannot measure, and you cannot measure what you have not counted.
Statistics South Africa remains one of the most important yet underrated institutions in this country. The decisions that business owners make about where to invest, the decisions municipalities should make about infrastructure, the decisions this Parliament makes about budget allocations — all of them rest on the reliability and accessibility of our national data.
StatsSA’s data should not be locked away in technical documents that only specialists can navigate. In an era of open data and digital access, every small business owner, every economic development practitioner, every young person trying to understand why their town has no jobs — they should be able to find that information easily, freely, and in a form they can use.
Madam Speaker, Mr President,
Over R521 billion. That is what this country has spent keeping the lights on, the planes in the air, the trains moving — partially — and the water boards solvent. And still, midnight threatens.
The Presidency must be the institution that ensures we never again find ourselves waving the same wand and hoping for a different result. The magic of bailouts has reached its limit. What must replace it is solid and decisive leadership that is professional, accountable, andconsequence-driven.
Mr President, some of the proudest moments of this country’s short democracy have been when the people have united. The GNU gives the country an opportunity to ensure growth, opportunity, and prosperity.
When the end of term comes and it is time to give this period a name, will your legacy be another fairy tale of promises that remained just that, or will we indeed write a new successful chapter?
The clock is ticking.
I thank you.