By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) has pushed back against the rigid enforcement of broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) hiring practices at Eskom.
The DA’s member of parliament, Ghaleb Cachalia, said that the stubborn insistence by Eskom to enforce the transformative hiring practices in the face of a skills shortage is “corporate sabotage” and places the economy at significant risk.
The opposition party called on the minister of public enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, to urgently implement a moratorium on the BBEE requirement on Eskom’s hiring decisions.
Race-based considerations are adding to the challenge of rehiring experienced staff as Eskom continues to bleed highly skilled engineers and technicians, said the DA.
“It is simply a no-brainer that, faced with a national electricity crisis, Eskom should be hiring the best-skilled people irrespective of the race to fix broken generation units, effect maintenance and ensure that costly mistakes by poorly experienced employees do not continue to happen – as they have,” said the DA.
The party added that the failure by Gordhan and Eskom to remove the regressive requirement in hiring engineers and technicians would negate the energy emergency plan that was announced by the president and worsen the underperformance of Eskom plants.
“Success in securing the amount of power made available by Eskom’s fleet of power plants to meet the minimum demands by consumers will continue to be a pipe dream until all red tape is removed to enable the seamless onboarding of critical skills across Eskom’s generation plants.”