The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) warned Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan that if Eskom was unbundled – which it said would be the ‘precursor to the privatization of electricity in South Africa’ – it would ‘shut down electricity generation, transmission, and distribution as such plunging the country into darkness’.
NUM president Joseph Montisetse said in a statement: ‘It is not a threat but a promise’.
He said the Eskom roadmap ‘is nothing else but a strategy aimed at pressurising unions to make unnecessary concessions to please White Monopoly Capital bosses in London and Washington’.
NUM said Eskom should be ‘saved’ by stopping the unbundling plans, rejecting the sale of power stations, cancelling the Independent Power Producers’ Power Purchase Agreement, stopping selling electricity to municipalities but rather selling direct to the public through a prepaid system, taking over coal mines and starting construction of nuclear power plants (which were ‘CO2 emissions-free’).
Montisetse said: ‘If these demands are not met we will shut down electricity generation, transmission, and distribution as such plunging the country into darkness.’
He added: ‘The real culprit is the ANC government – our own government that we put to power and is now in the business of destroying jobs in order to appease the so-called rating agencies and investors.’