The government should sell some state companies to improve public finances, a privatisation team commissioned by President Jacob Zuma has recommended.The team's report, released at the weekend, did not specify any companies. Analysts said sales would probably be of smaller companies and not the likes of Eskom or SA Airways.Many of South Africa's 300-odd state entities are a drain on the government purse.The report said that "governance, ownership policy and oversight systems were found to be inadequate" in state-owned enterprises and the team recommended that the government sell under-performing companies either fully or partially.Zuma, in his State of the Nation speech last week, said the government needed to tighten its belt in the face of a weak economy, which has been hit by a global slump in commodities demand and by power cuts, but analysts said it was unlikely to sell key state assets."'[The privatisation recommendation should] be taken with a very large pinch of salt," Nomura International's emerging markets economist, Peter Attard Montalto, said."It will apply mostly to smaller parastatals and is unlikely to shift the dial on Eskom."In July the government sold off its stake in Vodacom at a 10% discount to market prices to raise money for the cash-strapped Eskom. ..