BL Premium reports that Cosatu’s proposal to use R250bn of pension money managed by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) to pay down Eskom’s debt in return for a range of undertakings by the government was under urgent and serious discussion at a high-level meeting at Nedlac on Wednesday.  

Conditions of the deal would include that no workers at Eskom would lose their jobs and that Eskom would not be privatised.  President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has been thoroughly briefed on the proposal, has been strongly enthusiastic of the idea.  His support led to Wednesday’s urgent meeting, at which Cosatu was seeking to emerge with an in-principle commitment for the idea from social partners.  The labour federation hopes broad support for a social compact on Eskom will be included in Ramaphosa’s state of the nation speech next week.  The principle of using employee savings, chiefly those of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), to bail out troubled state-owned enterprises is controversial and has previously been rejected by Cosatu.  However, Cosatu’s parliamentary officer, Matthew Parks, said in this instance the motivation lay in the economic importance of saving Eskom.  If Eskom failed, all 12-million jobs in the formal economy would be at risk, according to Parks.  Cosatu has stressed that the bailout “is not a blank cheque and is tied to a number of conditions”.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Carol Paton at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
• Read too, Cosatu wants Eskom deal to be announced at Sona, at Moneyweb

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