Ramaphosa commends Eskom for increasing female representation, women’s role in keeping the light on

President Cyril Ramaphosa said while the country has made great progress in improving the position of women in society, it continues to face many challenges in building “a truly non-sexist and equal society.”

Ramaphosa made the remarks in his weekly newsletter From the desk of the President.

The president said while Eskom has managed to keep load shedding at bay, it also managed to narrow the gender gap in the workplace.

“While there is much attention on what Eskom is doing to stabilise our electricity system, another significant change has been quietly underway at the company over the course of the last few years,” said Ramaphosa.

Prominent roles

Ramaphosa said women are taking more prominent roles at Eskom.

“Women are taking a more prominent role in the work of Eskom and are playing a pivotal role in keeping the country’s lights on, said Ramaphosa.

“Two years ago. I met with Eskom’s power station managers and I was pleased to see that a number of them were women. I found this to be a complete departure from the past where power station managers were always white men. This represented tremendous transformation on a demographic as well as gender basis.

“The inspiring story of Maserati Lesolang, the general manager of the Matla Power Station in Mpumalanga, is a demonstration of Eskom’s successes in growing a new generation of female leaders. Under Lesolang’s able leadership, Matla Power Station has implemented a turnaround plan resulting in it now being among Eskom’s better-performing power stations,” Ramaphosa said.

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Women in technical roles

Ramaphosa said women are excelling not only in management and leadership positions but also in technical roles and occupations that were previously the preserve of men at various state-owned enterprises.

“Within Eskom itself, women are working as power station managers, engineers, artisans, operators and technicians.  This is the result of a deliberate and sustained initiative to increase female representation in the form of Eskom’s Women Advancement Programme.

“Among the achievements of the programme since its inception has been that just over 33% of Eskom’s workforce is now female, 20% of Eskom executives are women, and women occupy approximately 43% of senior management roles. This is important progress, but there is still some way to go to achieve gender parity,” Ramaphosa said.

Gender gap

Ramaphosa said Eskom has succeeded in narrowing the gender pay gap from 41% to below 6%.

“The company’s procurement spend on black-women-owned businesses has increased from R6 billion in 2013 to over R16 billion by 2022.”

“The national power utility continues to invest heavily in skilling and training for women, with just over half of further study opportunities at Eskom taken up by women,” Ramaphosa said.

Ramaphosa added that another key focus area of the programme is conducting outreach at schools and in communities to encourage female learners to consider future careers at Eskom.

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