JOHANNESBURG – Eskom workers affiliated to the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) are expected to picket outside Megawatt Park at lunchtime.
The cash-strapped SOE is battling to keep the lights on with ageing infrastructure in desperate need of overdue maintenance and a series of unplanned breakdowns.
In February last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the utility would split into three entities in order to streamline processes.
However, workers are opposed to the move, fearing that many might lose their jobs.
Numsa’s Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said workers would be picketing between noon and 1 pm on Wednesday afternoon.
“The purpose of the picket is to highlight the fact that Numsa rejects the unbundling that’s taking place at Eskom and we reject the privatisation of the utility.”
Eskom said it lost three of its generating units overnight after flooding at some of its power stations in Mpumalanga lead to “coal handling problems”.
The utility said it was expecting those units to return to service sometime on Wednesday.
While it’s monitoring the power system, Eskom said it was not planning to implement load shedding for the day.
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