NUM to march against IPPs

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) will march against government's Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (IPPs), retrenchments and the privatisation of Eskom on Saturday.

The union, together with its tri-partite alliance partners, will march to the Union Buildings to head over a memorandum to the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The union expects to meet Ramaphosa, Minister of Energy Jeff Radebe and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

The union's Paris Mashego says they will protest against a number of issues, including the possible privitisation of Eskom, with the union also adamant that government is misleading the country about jobs created through the IPP project.

"Government and IPP praise singers must stop misleading the public about million jobs created by IPPs, the job years theory is blue lies aimed at fooling our people "says Mashego. 

The union is also demanding that Eskom remain a state-owned enterprise. 

 "We demand that Eskom should remain under the ownership of the state responsible for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity.

 "Review the way Eskom Board is appointed. Terminate all upper or underhand activities of interference with the management of Eskom Similarly to Chinese state-owned companies. As a public utility, in terms of the Conversion Act of 2000, Eskom management must compete with their counterparts in the market in the country and the world at large without government assistance."

The union is also calling for government, the coal mining industry and Eskom to invest in clean coal technologies.