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Briefing the National Assembly public enterprises portfolio committee, public enterprises ministry special adviser Dr Ian Phillips said that state owned enterprise (SOE) borrowings as a percentage of South African international debt was now less than 15% of the debt - down from a peak of 46% in 1990.
"What this means is that SOEs have been able to release more funds normally paid in terms of interests on foreign loans and debts and plough that back into their enterprises and infrastructure delivery."
Noting arguments from the Democratic Alliance that infrastructure investment by parastatals had indeed come "too little too late", he said what was important was how the investment was integrated in the general development policies of government.
"Under the ANC government it has been under the SOE budgets themselves that has led to investment in infrastructure," he said, noting that the financial burdens on SOEs had been immense and this had much to do with limited spending on infrastructure in the early years of the ANC government.
From 1999 onwards SOEs had begun to accumulate and "move their bottom line upwards", indicating an improvement in the management of SOEs, he argued.
"It is only in 2000 that the SOEs were able to commit themselves to longer term planning to investment in infrastructure."
He noted that major SOE capital budgets had seen significant increases. Transnet had spent just over R9bn in 2002 and this was scheduled to rise to R12.6bn this year.
Eskom had spent R5.6bn last year rising to R9.4bn this year and R12.1bn next year - in line with the need for investment in generation capacity.
Denel would be spending R246m this year on capital projects up from R234m last year.
Phillips acknowledged that Denel had been operating in a loss making environment but increased expenditure was to be focused on capital equipment and retooling requirements for the SA Air Force relating to the Gripen and Hawk projects.
