The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) is gravely concerned about the countrywide electricity crisis which has resulted to awful load shedding.

Numsa is calling upon Eskom’s top management to meet with the organised unions involved as a matter of urgency and to reflect on challenges and possible solutions to the energy predicament.

The union has many issues it wanted to raise with Eskom management which affects the interests of members and civil society organisations.

Numsa officials, however, welcome, the daring efforts by Government, ANC and organised business to explore ways of resolving this crisis and placing it as a national priority.

The following are critical issues that we need to engage Eskom with:-

Outsourcing and maintenance

Numsa on many occasions in the past five to six years, advised Eskom to refrain from outsourcing generation, transmission, distribution and maintenance of electricity as these have a negative impact on the maintenance of the power stations and the power lines.
It has come to our notice that middle management is responsible for some of the unplanned outages which have calamitous effects on communities.

We further reject claims that the devastating power cuts were caused by skills shortage alone, disregarding the unsystematic re-commissioning of mothball power stations.

It is extremely erroneous to cite the mere 3,8% resignation by black employees and 2,2% white workers out of a total staff complement of 31 059 as the reason for skills shortages and consistent power cuts.

Other alternatives to redress the current situation should include investing in energy schemes which are environmentally friendly.

Numsa members in the energy production line have expressed their preparedness to contribute in the development of a national rescue plan.

For further information contact:

Bafana Ndebele at 011 6891700 or

Mziwakhe Hlangani, Numsa national spokesperson

Cell phone: 082 9407116

mziwakheh@numsa.org.za

Source

Numsa Press Releases