Eskom aims to reduce staff costs

File picture: Nic Bothma, EPA

File picture: Nic Bothma, EPA

Published Jul 3, 2015

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Johannesburg - Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd said it will look for ways to reduce staff costs other than cutting jobs after the South African state-owned power utility halted a plan to offer workers voluntary retrenchment deals.

Eskom, which supplies more than 95 percent of power to Africa’s most-industrialised economy, rejected applications by 2 493 employees for redundancy deals in February as the Johannesburg-based company decided against losing the workers’ skills, Khulu Phasiwe, a spokesman for Eskom, said by phone on Friday.

The company approved packages for 443 staff, most of whom were over the age of 60, after inviting applications for retrenchments in 2014, Eskom said in an emailed statement. The company employs 41 993 people.

“Eskom still requires the savings that those voluntary separation packages were modelled to generate,” it said.

The company will seek further “opportunities for saving in the manpower operating-cost space”.

Eskom needs to reduce cost as it faces a R225-billion shortfall for the five years through 2018 and battles to supply adequate power.

Bloomberg

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