My observations of state owned enterprises reflect the view that they are very inefficient when viewed through traditional business prisms of cost & benefit, but that they are not necessarily set up for traditional 'business benefits'...instead social benefits and other benefits (geostrategic?) seem to trump the 'hard-nosed-business-analysis' that you and i may be more familiar with. Current business organization trends in the East and West seem to reflect a greater preference for SOE's in the East than in the West (although there are of course exceptions to this...Fannie Mae, Freddi Mac, Sallie Mae, the TVA, etc)
The biggest SOE in the World (apart from the Peoples Liberation Army) is actually the NHS (National Health Service) of Britain. How would you classify Airbus?

So it is not only the East that is in the business of SOEs, Europe does a lot of it. The US likes to pretend that it isn't in that business (but that's a topic for another day).

The most important question is whether SOEs can work in Africa, I doubt it. The organisational and professional culture is lacking.