Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson says the State Property Company will create an asset book that will generate wealth for the public, for generations to come.
Image: HENK KRUGER Independent Newspapers
PUBLIC Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson said on Wednesday that the State Property Company announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa last week will generate revenue for the government to fund its asset maintenance.
Macpherson said during the State of the Nation Address debate, the proposed property investment vehicle was the most significant change in the management of state property since 1994.
“For decades, South Africa has owned the largest property portfolio in the country, yet, too many assets stand vacant, vandalised, hijacked or underused,” he said.
Macpherson also said the state spends up to R6 billion every year leasing private buildings while state-owned prime property stood vacant.
“We sit on an enormous asset value base if we don't generate any revenue to fund asset maintenance. These contradictions end today.”
The minister also said the State Property Company will create an asset book that will generate wealth for the public for generations to come.
“It introduces the best in asset management development, finance and product development.”
He added that the entity will establish a verified digital asset register and the government will for the first time manage its property portfolio with real time data and not fragmented spreadsheets.
Macpherson stated that the entity will also have a dedicated development capability and funding bulk services, among other things with clear project timelines that will allow private sector and sovereign funds to participate with certainty.
MK Party MP Edward Nzimande said Ramaphosa has stretched the limit of people’s patience.
“The ANC under you abandoned its revolutionary duty instead of crushing the system of exploitation.”
Nzimande said the 2026 SONA was rhetoric and full of illusions.
“You say people must have hope to deal with economic exclusion. Economic growth without impact is artificial,” he said.
Nzimande also said the coalition government was a fallacy.
“The Government of National Unity (GNU) has no shared beliefs and ideological belief. The DA, the Freedom Front Plus and Afriforum, your GNU partners, want to maintain the status quo,” he said.
EFF chief whip Nontando Nolutshungu said the government does not know what to do with the scourge of crime.
Referring to the recent closure of the Town Two Clinic in Khayelitsha due to extortionists demanding protection fees from nurses and security guards, Nolutshungu said the extortion rackets were a 'parallel government running the country and dictating who must get services and when'.
“Your announcement to deploy soldiers is a little too late. It is demonstration that you have zero confidence in the capacity of the police to fight crime,” she said.
Nolutshungu charged that Ramaphosa’s term of office has not achieved sustained growth of 3% in any single year.
“Yours is continuation of the wasted nine years under president Zuma. You are no different from him. You might, in fact, be worse,” she said.
Kenneth Mmoiemang, the ANC's chief whip in the National Council of Provinces, said Ramaphosa’s SONA reaffirmed bold, visionary and innovative leadership to integrate capabilities and resources of the national and provincial governments in a structured way to provide support and capacity to the local government sphere.
“We want to welcome the president’s intervention in stepping up the fight against crime, gangsters and criminal syndicates that hold our people at ransom,” he said, adding that the deployment of the SANDF was welcomed.
Mmoiemang noted that the country’s strides and successes brought new challenges and problems.