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Eskom wants to deport US workers

Johannesburg - Power utility Eskom has demanded the deportation of four expatriate employees following a television exposé in January.

MNet’s Carte Blanche reported that four people accused Eskom of luring them from the US under false pretences, as they found that their employment contracts did not match the jobs they were expected to perform when they reached Megawatt Park.

The four were part of a massive recruitment drive among black Americans, which involved the hiring of more than 300 US employees in 2006 and 2007. The quartet accused Eskom of falsely boosting its employment equity numbers by registering them as locals.

Sources told Fin24.com that the exercise cost about $8m (R60m) in travel expenses and placement fees paid to CareerNation, a recruitment firm based in New York and headed by Nigerian national Victor Madubuko. Without disclosing how much he was paid for his services, he disputed the figure with Fin24.com on Thursday.

“Over the years CareerNation has played a strategic role in identifying skills required for the design, building, refurbishment and running of Eskom’s extensive build programme,” says CareerNation on its website.

Sources say only 68 of those appointed are still in the parastatal's employ.

“Eskom’s international recruitment drive was a reckless use of public funds,” said a source. “In some cases their HR team would be made up of 10 delegates to the US and would only recruit eight people.”

In April, Eskom offered to terminate the fixed five-year employment contracts of the four and to pay them the equivalent of six months’ salary on condition that they leave the country within 30 days of being paid, a move they resist.

Generous bonuses for ‘resounding success’

After twice asking Fin24.com to extend a deadline for comment, Eskom subsequently would not go on record, saying it was an internal matter.

Eskom refused to say whether it is taking into consideration the personal circumstances of the four. Some of them have since made SA their permanent home and brought their families to stay in the country, including school-going children, while others have bought property.

Eskom would also not comment on how many expatriates remain in its workforce or its reasons for straying into immigration issues.

Sources say Eskom’s new human resources director, Bhabhalazi Bulunga, has approved the settlement and demanded a quick solution to the matter while avoiding publicity.

Mpho Letlape, Eskom human resources director at the time, testified at the disciplinary hearings in April that her recruitment project had been a "resounding success" - despite the fact that more than two-thirds of those employees  left Eskom in their first two years of employment.

Letlape herself resigned in December 2008 after being paid R815 000 in share performance bonuses, on top of her R2.1m annual salary. The previous year she took home a total R2.1m and was awarded a further R2.6m in performance bonus shares.

 - Fin24.com

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