The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) says it expects the country’s power situation to return to normal should striking employees accept Eskom’s latest wage offer.
The power utility has offered a 7% wage increase across the board, which unions are now taking to its members.
Up to Stage Six rolling blackouts were recently implemented due to further losses in generation capacity amid the ongoing impact of labour unrest and maintenance backlogs.
Stage Four rolling blackouts will continue until 10PM on Sunday night. The NUM’s Spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu says they expect the situation to normalise.
“We expect the situation to normalise after this offer by Eskom. Eskom presented the new offer of 7% across the board. They also gave us the housing allowance of 00 so those are some of the key issues that they have agreed.”
Unions still weighing up Eskom’s wage offer
Joburg City Power not coping with Stage Six blackouts
Meanwhile, Johannesburg’s City Power has warned residents that some areas will be without power for up to four hours instead of two hours under stage six blackouts.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says these are the undesirable effects of power cuts that everyone has to live with until Eskom’s capacity challenges are resolved.
“Load shedding stage six is really causing shocks and challenges for City Power and our customers. According to Eskom’s schedule, we have realised that during the higher stages of load shedding, especially stage six or eight should we get there, there will be customers in some blocks who will be shed for 4 hours instead of the 2 hours that we normally load shed people. It also means that customers should brace themselves to be load shed for three or four times daily.”
