LABOUR federation Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU) says while it has noted interventions announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday night to resolve the loadshedding crisis, it still needed more details, including figures and timeframes because these need to be expedited.
This follows Ramaphosa’s announcement of government’s ‘big’ plan to save embattled Eskom and improve the country’s electricity crisis.
“COSATU still feels that we could have avoided much of this debilitating loadshedding if government had moved with greater speed to implement the commitments of the Eskom Social Compact,” said COSATU’s spokesperson Sizwe Pamla on Tuesday.
“We remain deeply concerned that two years after the signing of the Eskom Social Compact at Nedlac, government has not finalised the debt relief package for Eskom. This needs to be concluded as a matter of urgency because reducing Eskom’s debt burden to affordable levels is key to freeing liquidity for it to increase its maintenance and also invest in building its new generation capacity.”
Pamla said COSATU will oppose the asset stripping of Eskom or any attempts to privatise it through the backdoor.
He said the government needs to move with speed to finalise the Cop26 $8 billion Just Energy Transition funding.
“This is critical to enabling Eskom to invest in new generation capacity, expand its renewable energy fleet, ensure workers and communities whose livelihoods are at risk are not left behind. This will also contribute to creating a local renewable energy manufacturing industry,” said Pamla.
“There is still more work that needs to be done to ensure that all consumers, in particular businesses, municipalities and government entities pay for the electricity they consume. Indigent households need to receive their allocation of free electricity.”
COSATU said it welcomed the establishment of an energy task team that will include organised labour to ensure the implementation of these interventions.
“It is critical that all parties, in particular government, business, labour and communities work together to overcome our energy crisis.”
The Federation said it will avail itself to contribute to the critical work of this task team and to engage with government on the granular details of the President’s announcements at Nedlac.
“We reiterate our position that all of this work needs to have specific timeframes and deadlines because the citizens and the economy are paying a huge price for loadshedding,” said Pamla.
STAFF REPORTER|
