Broke Eskom wants to pay employees R150 million in bonuses for avoiding winter load shedding
Cash-strapped Eskom is considering paying its employees a R150-million “winter challenge” bonus for avoiding power cuts, The Sunday Times reports.
The submission comes a month after the power utility reportedly paid R4.2-billion in performance bonuses to staff, and two months after public enterprises minister Lynne Brown approved bonuses totaling R13-million for its executives, including former CEO Brian Molefe, former chief financial officer Anoj Singh and suspended acting CEO Matshela Koko.
“I cannot think of any reason to pay bonuses to Eskom employees for doing their job: keeping the lights on,” said Brown.
“And particularly not in the current economic environment. It is an operational matter and therefore not the shareholders’ call, but I would like to believe Eskom’s interim leadership will take prudent financial decisions.”
Added to the no load-shedding requirement is that there can be no fatalities and no environmental contraventions.
An Eskom HR executive has indicated that the bonuses would be spread across the company and not limited to generation staff. Should the proposal be approved, Eskom would then pay an amount of R149.8 million to be shared among 47,053 employees.
You can read the full story in today’s Sunday Times.
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