Eskom wants to retrench 500 white maintenance workers.“Those are the people Eskom should recruit, based on their ability to help solve the power crisis, without looking at the colour of their skin,” the organisation stated.
“These absurd race targets come amid the fact that power station maintenance is one of Eskom’s major challenges,” said Hermann.
“Eskom should now focus on one thing only, and that is not race, but power. South Africans do not need race targets but light in their homes and power for their businesses.”
“Also, it makes it nearly impossible to appoint some of the hundreds of experts who have offered their services to assist Eskom because they have the wrong skin colour,” Hermann said.
“Between 1994 and 2002, at least 10,207 white persons left Eskom,” Solidarity said. “From about 2000, Eskom has paid R1.8 billion in terms of current rand value for packages to get rid of white people.”
“This rapid loss of skills led to a huge loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.”
Hermann said that Eskom had apparently learnt nothing from this experience. “It is still pursuing its race programme, even in the dark,” he stated.
