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BL Premium writes that Eskom is often criticised for having a bloated workforce, but the ministerial technical task team has found that the embattled utility in fact lacks critical skills.
Speaking at the Minerals Council SA on Tuesday evening, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said the task team he appointed in early March would hand this and other findings over in a report to him and to the Eskom board by Thursday this week. Gordhan said: “Eskom has the strange contradiction where on the one hand we’ll say we’ve got 48,000 people and, by virtue of a World Bank study in comparing Eskom to a similar utility, it’s overstaffed. This team has found that whilst there is this overpopulation in some parts of Eskom, on the other hand, where the real business of Eskom is, which is on the generation side and power stations, there are in fact vacancies for key professionals that need to be filled urgently.” The power utility is struggling operationally and buckling under an enormous debt burden. Once the new cabinet is appointed, the government is expected to get straight to work on fixing Eskom, which includes the implementation of its restructuring, as mooted by President Cyril Ramaphosa. The ANC-led government has repeatedly promised that Eskom staff will not be retrenched, but the unions are unconvinced of this and many experts have said job cuts are necessary for the utility to get its finances under control. Gordhan, however, said the real issue for Eskom was fixing the operational problems.
- Read the full original of Lisa Steyn’s report in the above regard at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page