COSATU statement on government’s additional measures to overcome loadshedding as announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa
26 July 2022
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has noted President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of additional measures to overcome loadshedding. The ongoing loadshedding is unsustainable for an economy with a 46% unemployment rate. The Federation hopes that the announced interventions will help resolve our loadshedding crisis. We still need more details including figures and timeframes because these need to be expedited. The country does not have the luxury of time.
COSATU still feels that we could have avoided much of this debilitating loadshedding if government had moved with greater speed to implement the commitments of the Eskom Social Compact.
We remain deeply concerned that two years after the signing of the Eskom Social Compact at Nedlac, government has not finalised the debt relief package for Eskom. This needs to be concluded as a matter of urgency because reducing Eskom’s debt burden to affordable levels is key to freeing liquidity for it to increase its maintenance and also invest in building its new generation capacity.
This debt relief, though, must not include the sale of Eskom’s generation capacity as previously called for by the Minister for Finance. COSATU will oppose the asset stripping of Eskom or any attempts to privatise it through the backdoor.