NUM threatens to pull support for ANC ahead of polls
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) can no longer guarantee that its members will vote for the African National Congress (ANC) in the upcoming elections.
The union is angry at the announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa that Eskom would be unbundled into three entities, namely generation, transmission and distribution.
The announcement was made during the State of the Nation Address last week.
NUM’s general-secretary David Sipunzi told the media on Thursday the announcement may force the union to call a special congress.
“If our members are down there grumbling we may be compelled, having followed our constitutional provisions… we may be compelled to call a special national congress just to deal with that.
“As the leaders we cannot ignore the cry of the members that say: ‘If the ANC is doing this thing to us, why should we continue with our support of the ANC?’
“We can no longer guarantee and we are not in a position to say without fear that NUM members are definitely going to vote for the ANC, they are grumbling. There are job losses,” he says.
On Wednesday, hundreds of Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) members marched in Johannesburg to show their anger at the current state of economic affairs.
The NUM, who is an affiliate union of Cosatu, is also opposed to the restructuring of Eskom.
“The unbundling of Eskom will be an expensive exercise which will push Eskom further into debt. Eskom should remain a vertically intergrated utility,” said the union’s president Joseph Moutisetse.
The power utility has debts in excess of R400 billion and could cease to exist by April should the government not bail it out.
But NUM believes instead of unbundling, one of the ways in which the power utility could be stabilized is by disbanding the current board.
“We are saying the president must disband this board. This Eskom board which is running the business now is short of management, which is administration, and have a shortage of skills, which is engineering. There unbundling will not solve anything, you have to solve the management of Eskom by putting credible and effective board and effective management,” Moutisetse said.
The union will meet with Energy Minister Jeff Radebe and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan on Monday to discuss th