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Eskom workers protest over wage demands outside the Lethabo Power Station in the Free State. Picture: ZIPHOZONKE LUSHABA
Eskom workers protest over wage demands outside the Lethabo Power Station in the Free State. Picture: ZIPHOZONKE LUSHABA

Eskom must act against the illegal strikers and fire the lot. Its overpaid workforce is bloated and incompetent anyway; the strikers need to be replaced with competent, willing and able people. In 1994, Eskom had a capacity of 56GW with only 17,000 employees. Now it has only 27GW available with 47,000 employees. Does this make sense?

Private households should be allowed to accumulate credits for renewables being fed back into the grid, at the same rate as they pay for electricity. This might not solve load-shedding at night, but it will certainly reduce it during the day. This will create a lot of additional electricity at no capital expense for Eskom.

The government also needs to act against illegal connections. How difficult can it be to follow an illegal connected wire and arrest the thief at the end of the line? And it must ban exports of scrap metal and tighten control over scrap metal dealers.

Ignatius de Wet
Via email

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