POLITICS

NUM unhappy with current load shedding

Union disappointed with Eskom’s performance under leadership of Andrew de Ruyter

NUM is unhappy with the current load shedding taking place in the country

21 January 2021

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has observed and is unhappy with the load shedding that is currently taking place in the country. We are very disappointed with the performance of Eskom under the leadership of Andrew de Ruyter. In January 2020 Jabu Mabuza resigned and apologized to the nation for failing to arrest load shedding as he promised on the 11th of December 2019. The primary reason for his resignation was the failure to prevent load shedding. 

"The current management team has taken the country to stage 6 for the first time in the history of this country. This team is perpetually failing to produce sufficient power to avoid load shedding. Under this leadership, load shedding is expected to be with us for the next 2 to 3 years. There is no proper plan in place to prevent load shedding. This is happening besides the fact that the country is on lockdown. It is happening besides the reality that the economy is not performing well. The poor performance of the national electricity grid is happening because of poor leadership," said Khangela Baloyi, NUM Eskom Energy Sector Coordinator 

The NUM is calling on our government as the Eskom shareholder to address this issue of poor leadership. We believe that many professionals will be able to turn around the performance of Eskom. We refuse as the NUM to allow mediocre to continue in our SOEs. This management team is taking Eskom to the same road that SAA took. The current leadership of Eskom is pro-IPPs. As we have said before the IPPs are acting as parasites that are milking Eskom. With the current PPAs with IPPs Eskom will not survive. The NUM calls on the government to review the current IPPs setup. These IPPs are not even assisting the country in dealing with load shedding.

We have also observed the introduction of load reduction in areas where poor people reside. This is a serious attack on the masses of our people. It is undemocratic and it discriminates against poor people. The reason load shedding is rotational is to avoid targeting areas especially poor areas for electricity blackout. The introduction of load reduction takes away the fairness of load shedding. We call on the government to instruct Eskom to refrain from load reduction.

Issued by Khangela Baloyi, NUM Eskom Energy Sector Coordinator, 21 January 2021