Government interference contributes to Telkom crisis: Telkom's offer of voluntary packages amounts to extortion

The financial problems of telecommunications giant, Telkom, are the direct result of government's close involvement and interference in the parastatal's business, trade union Solidarity today said. According to Solidarity, Telkom's offer of voluntary severance packages or early retirement packages made to its entire workforce of 21 000 employees amounts to emotional and financial extortion.

Telkom has already confirmed that a formal retrenchment process is likely to follow should the voluntary process not achieve the desired cost savings. Moira-Marie Kloppers, spokesperson for Solidarity, says it is unfair that Telkom's employees should be punished for poor management caused by government interference. ‘Last year, cabinet put paid to Telkom's planned multi billion rand deal with the South Korean KT Corporation, and Solidarity then warned that it could lead to Telkom having to cut costs due to a lack of capital, which could lead to the retrenchment of thousands of employees.'

Kloppers says Telkom's offer of voluntary severance packages or early retirement packages amounts to emotional and financial extortion because the telecommunications giant is making it patently clear that it would be the last time that "enhanced" packages will be offered to employees. ‘Telkom made it clear to employees that the longer they take to apply for a package, the less attractive it would become. Telkom is placing employees in a position where they have to choose between applying for a package or running the risk of being retrenched at a later stage, possibly having to be content with a significantly smaller package. There is a climate of uncertainty among Telkom's employees because of the company's financial woes, and employees are being forced to take difficult decisions which will have an impact on their future.'

Meanwhile, Telkom's extravagance has been widely reported and the telecommunications giant is believed to have granted a sponsorship of R12 million to the pro-government paper, The New Age, to host a series of business breakfasts. In the meantime, Communications Minister, Dina Pule, has her work cut out dealing with alleged irregularities around a glamorous ICT indaba the department hosted in Cape Town. It is outrageous that Telkom's employees would now possibly have to pay the penalty because Telkom has become a political playball. Government, and Pule in particular, must be accountable for their uninformed interference and have to intervene to find alternatives for retrenchments at Telkom.'

Solidarity stressed that trade unions have not been informed of Telkom's offer of voluntary severance packages or early retirement packages by means of formal consultation, but have only learnt about it at a briefing yesterday.

Statement issued by Moira-Marie Kloppers, Spokesperson: Solidarity, March 12 2013

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