No, actually. You keep them running as a going concern, but spin off business units gradually. It makes sense for a government to maintain some technical capacity.
In the case of Eskom, they could spin off the operations and maintenance of almost all power plants and eventually sell the plants themselves, but retain the network. It is fairly easy to sell the plants and sign a long term agreement with a private supplier for power delivery into the network. As the network serves the whole country, Eskom should retain that, with the pumped storage hydropower that are used to stabilise the grid, rather than their generating capacity.
In the case of SAA, government should retain ownership, but contract out operations. Somewhat similar to how Comair operates Kulula for BA. That way the country can maintain a "national carrier" and the associated prestige - which does have value. The airline should, however, not be propped up at all cost. Where government deems a destination to be of strategic importance (Beijing, for example) but the route is not profitable, they can put the route out to tender on a cost per seat-basis. That means government guarantees to subsidise the cost of the tendered number of seats on an agreed number of flights. The operator who tenders for the lowest number of seats wins the contract and make their profit by filling more seats. That makes the process transparent and costs a lot less than making the business pay for non-profitable routes from other routes where a fully commercial airline would close down the routes.
