Most SOEs report a profit

EXCEPTIONS: NO IMPROVEMENT AT SAA, PETROSA OR DENEL AND QUESTIONS AROUND PRASA

- Adriaan Kruger

The ninth year of collating the profits and losses of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) delivered a welcome surprise in that the aggregate results showed a profit.

Unfortunately, there are significant caveats about the positive results - and serious questions about a few of the major companies.

That the SOEs collectively posted a profit of R58 billion for the year to March, is a welcome change.

In the previous year, the total loss exceeded R16 billion - and in both 2020 and 2021, it peaked at more than R38 billion.

However, most of the improvement came from just a few of the big state companies posting improved results compared to the previous year.

The bulk of the recovery in the overall figure came from the turnarounds at Eskom and Transnet, even if Transnet is still running at a huge loss.

Eskom posted a profit of a shade more than R16 billion in the year to end March, compared to a massive loss of R55 billion in the previous financial year.

Interventions at Transnet cut the loss there from R7.3 billion to less than R2 billion.