Unions miffed by Eskom chief executive’s wage talks no show

ESKOM, which was forced to go back to the negotiating table with unions by the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, had its initial 4.7% wage increase rejected by unions.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and Solidarity said they were disappointed that Eskom came to the wage talks without group chief executive Phakamani Hadebe.

“We want to engage but we cannot engage with people who do not have the power to make decisions.

“We demand the presence of the group chief executive at the meetings,” the unions said in a joint statement.

Indications are that the unions are eyeing an increase of more than 9%.

Minister of Finance Nhlan- hla Nene on Thursday threw the spanner in the works, saying money “does not exist” to satisfy the unions wage demands.

On the economic data front, the annual inflation rate eased to 4.9% in May, from 4.5% in April, comfortably within the central bank’s target range of 3% to 6% and well below the market consensus of 4.6%.

However, May’s inflation print proved to be the only positive activity data to be released this week.

Data from the SA Reserve Bank showed that the current account deficit in the first quarter widened to 4.9% of gross domestic product (GDP).

The R229 billion deficit was primarily blamed on declining net gold and merchandise exports in the period.

This as renewed weakness in the housing market came to the fore.

The latest FNB estate agent report revealed that the average time a home remained on the market before being sold increased to 16 weeks and four days in the second quarter this year from 14 weeks and one day in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, the Grant Thornton Johannesburg chief executive Paul Badrick stepped down from his position amid an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him.

Badrick became the second executive at the firm this year to be implicated in sexual harassment.

Further, Sasfin this week said it had appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as its auditor with immediate effect.

PwC took over from the group’s current joint auditors Grant Thornton Johannesburg and KPMG.