The government reckons, for instance, that 27, 000 jobs need to be lost at Transnet, the state transport company, and 10, 000 at Telkom.

ECONOMIST: The painful privatisation of South Africa

Yet rather than properly liberalising the market, the government may allow a duopoly after 2002, with the other licence going to the merged internal telephone networks of other state-owned firms, such as Eskom, the state electricity firm, and Transnet, the state transport group.

ECONOMIST: Telkom, the state telecoms monopoly, still has much to do