"Putting monopolies in charge of scarce, basic necessities is a bad idea. How did that work out w/ telecoms under privatised Telkom, Vodacom et al, banking, etc"

And how did it work out any better having government monopolies in charge of entities like Eskom, SAA and Telkom (prior to privatisation)?

At least now that there is some competition in the telecoms space, things are slowly improving, which is more than can be said for the water and electricity arena...