The power utility says the country’s electricity grid remains under strain and that a minimum of stage 4 loadshedding will continue throughout the weekend. They warned that this could change at any time and announcements could be made on short notice.
Around 17 467MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns while a further 3 161MW are offline due to planned maintenance.
Eskom says that an unlawful and unprotected strike is contributing further pressure on the already strained grid. This as the strike has resulted in high absenteeism of staff around its power plants in the country.
“The high levels of staff absenteeism and intimidation of working employees in some of the power stations is still rife. This has made it difficult to conduct routine maintenance and other operational requirements, which will further impact the reliability of generation units” said the utility.
Eskom is calling on the striking workers to return to their posts because their actions are having a serious detrimental impact not only on Eskom, but also on the broader South African public and the country's economy.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) says they will return to the bargaining council with Eskom on Friday in an attempt to reach an agreement.
NUMSA and NUM also hit out at media reports stating they rejected a 7% salary increase from Eskom. They warned that these reports do not represent the position of the unions.
The Unions said, “Any reports or claims in the media suggesting that we have either accepted or rejected an offer at Eskom are false. We call on media houses to be responsible in their reporting. When they publish fake news it can have a very detrimental impact on the negotiations process.”
