Cosatu protests Eskom ‘unbundling’
COSATU has vowed to block the plans recently announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa to split Eskom into sub-entities to make it efficient, as the federation saw it as a gateway to looting and privatisation.
Yesterday, the federation staged its national strike across provinces to fight job losses, corruption and privatisation of state-owned entities.
The federation called for an end to contractual relations between Eskom and independent power producers who are accused of milking the utility dry.
Addressing hundreds of workers who had marched on the Minerals Council SA in Johannesburg, Cosatu Gauteng secretary Dumisani Dakile said the federation was totally opposed to Ramaphosa’s plans to unbundle the embattled power utility.
“We are told today that Eskom is going to be unbundled. History has told us when the SA Post Office was unbundled, what consequences came of that.
“The most interesting part is that we know that the massive retrenchments at Eskom were led by the current chairperson of Eskom (Jabu Mabuza). We are not fools.
“We want to tell the chief executive of Eskom (Phakamani Hadebe) no unbundling is going to take place when we are still alive. We must defend Eskom even if it means we must defend it with our blood.”
Dakile slammed the SACP for accepting the government’s unbundling of Eskom “in principle”. “We think the SACP is committing a serious tactical mistake as with the adoption of Gear.
“We think the party is making a similar tactical mistake when they accepted the National Development Plan because till today those clauses we said are problematic are still enforced.”
Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi, who led the march in Durban, said unbundling at Eskom must not lead to privatisation and action that would see job losses.
Losi was the main speaker at the Durban City Hall, where Cosatu handed a memorandum to provincial Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC Thomas Mxolisi Kaunda, who represented Premier Willies Mchunu, and Eskom senior officials.
“We should agree with the ANC government that you can unbundle Eskom if you want, but there should be no job losses, no electricity cost increases and no privatisation.
“The ANC government should not transfer its responsibility to generate electricity to the private sector because if capitalists produce electricity this country will come to a standstill, and investors will run away.
“The private sector is engineering to remove the ANC from power,” said Losi.