The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is the latest in a line of skills shortage ‘denialists’. They follow on the heels of Black Management Forum chairman Jimmy Manyi in trashing suggestions that many of the country’s infrastructure and service delivery
848 skilled vacancies advertised
If we believe Manyi there are no skills shortages in the country. And if we believe Eskom’s management there are no shortages at the country’s power giant either. But their claims are rather difficult to believe considering Eskom is in the process of hiring 848 people. This was revealed in a written response by minister for public enterprises, Alec Erwin, to the Democratic Alliance.
Two items bear further mention. First is that Eskom’s total workforce is only around 30 000, meaning the new recruits represent almost 3% of the total employee base. The second is that these new employees are needed in core, critical and scarce positions in the company. This situation makes an absolute mockery of any claim that Eskom’ current crisis has nothing to do with skills shortages.
Erwin will admit that the skills issue is one of the challenges facing Eskom going forward. He says “for this reason it is a standing item at all board meetings.” However he will not admit that skills shortages have anything to do with the current crisis. “The electricity shortage is as result of coal quality and quantity, maintenance scheduling and the price of electricity not reflecting its cost and thus leading to inefficient utilisation.” Our question to the minister is fairly simple: If Eskom was up to the task why were coal stockpiles inefficiently managed, maintenance schedules not adhered to and appropriate pricing structures not put in place?
Electricity shortage won’t hurt the economy
Erwin has been under fire on many fronts recently. Following his claims that sabotage had caused a maintenance failure at South Africa’s only nuclear power plant he continues to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. In January he told anyone who would listen that: “Government is confident if we work to reduce demand we should be able to maintain the current healthy growth of the economy.” Unfortunately a drop in production is inevitable when you force your country’s heavy industrial companies to cut electricity consumption by 10%. And falls in production mean slower economic growth.
Cutting industrial energy demand by 10% was the first part of Eskom’s recovery plan. It was easy to implement because the company has full control over the electricity supplied to its biggest users. Stage two was for local municipalities to get private users to cut their demand by similar amounts. The problem is Eskom is not able to achieve this saving by simply flipping a switch – and it appears ordinary consumers have not been as frugal as the power utility would like. As we near the winter months it is almost certain the ‘load shedding’ sceptre will again raise its ugly head. And there is more bad news.
This week the ANC issued statements that show they have still not come to grips with the problem. In response to Eskom’s announcement that construction projects requiring more than 100 Kilo-Volt-Amps (KVA) would be delayed they said: “every effort must be made to ensure that the current problems in electricity supply do not negatively affect the building of projects of this nature.” The ANC continued: “such delays could undermine efforts to grow the economy, and slow the rate of important capital investment.” The problem is Eskom does not have the capacity to accommodate these new projects, meaning a slower growth rate and a reduction in capital investment is inevitable. You cannot kill the cow and still expect milk every morning!
Private sector will use any excuse to axe workers
In light of Erwin’s refusal to acknowledge the damaging economic impact of Eskom’s current supply crunch his next statement comes as no surprise. Following widespread claims of massive job losses in the mining industry Erwin chooses to point fingers back at the private sector. He told parliament’s public enterprises committee: “I’ve been a trade unionist for many years and you often use an event like this to explain something you’re going to do anyway.” In other words, Gold Fields and Harmony have been waiting patiently for a massive external event to slash their gold production just so they can sign retrenchment orders on some 15 000 workers! It is no wonder many opposition parties have been baying for Erwin’s head.
Their requests were unfortunately met with the usual scorn. President Mbeki stood up for his public enterprises and mining and minerals ministers this week, saying the Eskom crisis sat on the shoulders of the entire cabinet – and that no single minister should shoulder the blame. It seems no amount of ineptitude can get you fired from a cabinet post…
We will have to resign ourselves to a long period of insufficient power. The best the department of public enterprises has come up with recently is to split the country into two separate time zones. Portia Molefe, the department’s director general believes this ‘idea’ will save the country 200MW and be of great benefit to domestic airlines. We hope the proposal never sees the light of day!
Editor’s thoughts:
South Africa is not the only country in the world that’s suffering from an electricity shortage. We submit, however, that it’s management before and after the crisis has been appalling. Why do government ministers refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes? Send your comments to gareth@fanews.co.za, or add them below.
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