Gordhan never approached Solidarity to help ‘save’ Eskom – DPE

The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has denied claims that it approached trade union Solidarity to help recruit technical experts to save Eskom.

Solidarity wrote to Gordhan in May, offering to help in mobilising what Gordhan has acknowledged are “critical skills”.

Gordhan responded this week, as load shedding continued to cripple the economy and plunge the country into darkness.

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In a letter addressed to Solidarity’s Dirk Hermann, which Solidarity made public this week, Gordhan thanked the union for the offer of assistance for Eskom’s “generation performance challenges”.

However, the DPE says government has been soliciting the inputs of many organisations and professionals to assist in identifying individuals who can come back to Eskom and help to get the old power stations back in order and mentor younger managers. 

“To repeat, the minister did not approach Solidarity. He simply made a call to all organisations, including the social partners, for skilled personnel regardless of race to avail themselves to be placed at Eskom. Various professional and business organisations have responded and offered to assist in this regard.

“It is a pity that Solidarity and some in the media are politicising this issue in the midst of a crisis that government is working very hard to address,” the department said.

In his Budget Vote Speech on 20 May, Gordhan referred to the lack of engineering and technical skills at State-Owned Enterprises including Eskom.

The DPE says the experienced engineers and technical skills were mainly hollowed out as a result of State Capture and corruption over the years.    

“Before and after the Budget Vote Speech, there has been similar offers of assistance. One such example is the establishment of the Ministerial Review Task Team.”   

The DPE says Eskom will follow its own internal human resources policies and processes to ensure that the appropriate engineers, who possess the best skills and experience, are hired.

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