THE Department of Public Enterprises has dismissed suggestions that police and intelligence officers will be deployed to Eskom facilities to prevent possible sabotage of the electricity supply in the country.
The Sunday Times reported that Eskom’s emergency plan includes preventing possible sabotage by those who allegedly benefited from state capture or unions unhappy with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that Eskom will be split into three divisions. Days after Ramaphosa's announcement during the State of the Nation Address (Sona) Eskom initiated stage 4 load shedding as a result of seven generating units tripping within a five hour period.
A leading energy expert, Ted Blom, has also disputed reports about the possible involvement of unions in acts of sabotage at Eskom.
Adrian Lackay, spokesperson for Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan, disagreed with the Sunday Times report. “As far as the department is aware, no requests have been made to the police or military to protect power stations as no industrial action has been been instituted, nor have public protests been called for, at this stage,” Lackay said.
The reference to the ministries of Police and State Security was their inclusion in the Inter-Ministerial Task Team on Eskom announced by Ramaphosa in his reply to opposition parties during the debate on Sona. This was after load shedding had been in place for a number of days.
“In my reading, the Sunday Times uses this [the make-up of the task team] as a basis for its front page story,” Lackay said.
Blom believes the report may have been prompted by concerns of government officials about the possible reaction of labour unions to the announcement of Eskom's unbundling.
On the “Black Twitter group” people were “openly talking about plans to stop the unbundling of Eskom.
“The government is worried. The situation is volatile. It is good that they doubled up security,” Blom said. However, he doubted that labour unions, regardless of their feelings about Eskom, would countenance sabotage.
Although labour unions feel betrayed over the Eskom decision, Ramaphosa has stressed that Eskom will not be privatised.
The president urged unions to refrain from threats of strike action but to consider having talks with the government to resolve the impasse.
Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said his union had no plan to sabotage Eskom. Numsa and other unions have expressed their disapproval of the unbundling. Cosatu last week marched to protest against job losses including from the planned unbundling of Eskom.
It plans another march to Parliament on Wednesday ahead of Finance Minister Tito Mboweni's tabling of the Budget.
National police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo could not confirm reports that SAPS officers would be deployed to protect Eskom and said he would only comment today after receiving a full briefing from the police management.
He said the Sunday newspaper article was published without soliciting comment from police.
State Security Agency spokesperson Lebohang Mafokosi was not available for comment and did not answer questions sent to her email address.