NUMSA and Transform RSA granted an interdict to prevent Eskom IPP contracts
13 March 2018
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) together with Transform RSA have obtained an urgent court interdict at the North Gauteng High Court to prevent Eskom from concluding the outstanding renewable energy Independent Power Producer (IPP) products, including the power purchase agreements. NUMSA and Transform RSA launched a late night high court bid yesterday to urgently interdict Eskom from signing the 27 (IPP) contracts on Tuesday the 13th of March.
The court found that our application meets the standard for urgency and therefore granted us the interdict. Furthermore, the Energy minister was forced to give an undertaking in court that he would not sign the IPP agreements on Tuesday until the matter has been given a full hearing by the High court.
This is a victory for NUMSA. We joined this application with Transform RSA in order to protect the livelihoods of thousands of workers and their families.
NUMSA believes that the signing of these contracts would be detrimental for the working class of Mpumalanga and the country as a whole. The signing of the IPP means that Eskom will require less coal fired electricity. This is likely to lead to the closure of the coal fired power plants and the impact will be that at least 30 thousand working class families will suffer because of job losses.