Bloomberg reports that the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has blamed “poor leadership” at state-owned power utility Eskom for ongoing nationwide power cuts.  

The union, which is the biggest labour grouping at Eskom, said on Thursday in a statement that it was “very disappointed with the performance” of Eskom Chief Executive Officer Andre de Ruyter and the lack of a plan to prevent outages.”  The union also continues to oppose the use of independent electricity producers, which Eskom is counting on to help increase generation.  SA could experience power shortages through at least April, presenting another threat to an economy already hampered by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.  Eskom is saddled with R464 billion of debt and has been unable to provide reliable power since 2008, when outages began.  The NUM, which represents about a third of Eskom’s more than 44,772-strong workforce, urged the government to change the leadership at Eskom.  Eskom responded by saying that it “has regularly communicated its plan to improve the performance of the power stations and to reduce load shedding” and that there was “a good working relationship with its labour representatives, including the NUM.”

• Read the original of the report in the above regard by Paul Burkhardt at Moneyweb <https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/eskoms-biggest-union-blames-ceo-for-load-shedding/>

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