{"id":1710,"date":"2024-05-04T05:38:52","date_gmt":"2024-05-04T05:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/?p=1710"},"modified":"2026-03-18T11:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T11:46:07","slug":"worst-investment-in-south-africa-r283-billion-invested-and-only-r1-million-returned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/2024\/05\/04\/worst-investment-in-south-africa-r283-billion-invested-and-only-r1-million-returned\/","title":{"rendered":"Worst investment in South Africa \u2013 R283 billion invested and only R1 million returned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1711\" src=\"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/South-Africa-Trouble-Disaster-Ramaphosa-768x432-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"432\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/South-Africa-Trouble-Disaster-Ramaphosa-768x432-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/South-Africa-Trouble-Disaster-Ramaphosa-768x432-1-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The South African government has invested R283 billion in six state-owned companies over the last five years and has received only R1 million in dividends.<\/p>\n<p>This was revealed by the Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan during a parliamentary question and answer session.<\/p>\n<p>DA MP Farhat Essack asked Gordhan how much SA Airways, Eskom, Transnet, the SA Forestry Company, Alexkor, and Denel received in bailouts over five years.<\/p>\n<p>He also asked the minister how much these companies paid out in dividends over the past five years.<\/p>\n<p>The feedback was telling. It shows that state-owned enterprises are a black hole for taxpayer money.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The government gave South African Airways R33.1 billion over the last five years and received nothing in return.<\/li>\n<li>It gave Eskom R234.6 billion and received nothing in return.<\/li>\n<li>The government invested R5.8 billion in Transnet, but the company has not paid dividends since May 2019.<\/li>\n<li>Denel received R9 billion in bailouts and did not pay any dividends.<\/li>\n<li>Alexkor received no bailouts and did not pay out any dividends.<\/li>\n<li>The South African Forestry Company received no bailouts and paid R1 million in dividends over 5 years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The question from Essack did not include other SOEs, like the South African Post Office or the SABC, which also received billions in bailouts.<\/p>\n<p>The numbers showed that the government invested R282.5 billion of taxpayer money into a handful of state-owned companies, with virtually no return.<\/p>\n<p>This would be considered an incredible waste of money in the private sector, and heads would roll.<\/p>\n<p>However, despite their dismal performance, South Africa\u2019s government continues to pump billions into these companies.<\/p>\n<p>Gordhan admitted that a large part of these bailouts was necessary because of corruption and mismanagement at these companies.<\/p>\n<p>However, despite the corruption and mismanagement continuing unabated, billions continue to flow into these enterprises.<\/p>\n<p>The table below summarises the government\u2019s investment in the six state-owned enterprises and the dividends the government received.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\">\n<div class=\"table-responsive\">\n<table class=\"table\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>State-owned company<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Money received<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Money returned<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Eskom<\/td>\n<td>R234.6 billion<\/td>\n<td>Zero<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>South African Airways<\/td>\n<td>R33.1 billion<\/td>\n<td>Zero<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Transnet<\/td>\n<td>R5.8 billion<\/td>\n<td>Zero<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Denel<\/td>\n<td>R9 billion<\/td>\n<td>Zero<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Alexkor<\/td>\n<td>Zero<\/td>\n<td>Zero<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>South African Forestry Company<\/td>\n<td>Zero<\/td>\n<td>R 1 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>TOTAL<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>R282.5 billion<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>R1 million<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h6>Credit: Daily Investor<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South African government has invested R283 billion in six state-owned companies over the last five years and has received only R1 million in dividends.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innov8ions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}