COSATU calls for the Eskom Board to be held accountable for its obvious failures

12 March 2019

The Congress of South African Trade Union is alarmed by media reports that a US company that messed the designs at Kusile Power Station in Mpumalanga is still cashing in millions at Eskom. This is happening at a time when the people of this country are being forced to give Eskom above-inflation tariff increases on top of the R23 billion that taxpayers have already handed over.

The federation is concerned that the Board of Eskom and the Senior Management that was introduced with a lot of fanfare about a year ago is failing to stop the power utility from imploding. The company is still failing to keep the lights on and is still propping up the exorbitantly corrupt contacts that they inherited from the previous regime.

Electricity tariffs are a burden on consumers and load shedding is causing confusion and is likely to result in loss of jobs and low wages due to cut in electricity production.

In 2018 Eskom board presented a 9 point plan but since then we have experienced load shedding. The Federation is troubled that the Eskom Board is not being held accountable for this and other failures.

The Board has also been deceptive in that they have publicly stated that the proposed unbundling will not result in job losses, while at the same time initiating Section 189 processes in order to retrench workers. They have been opaque in their dealings with everyone. For example, they have not responded to our demand to know how much it will cost Eskom to restructure in terms of transaction advisory fees.

COSATU calls for the investigation into Kusile and Medupi costs to be expedited, including investigating the possibility of private sector tender collusion and inflating of costs.

We demand that a competent board with an experienced CEO in the energy sector to be appointed and the current board should be dismissed with immediate effect. 

Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 12 March 2019