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Eskom sees deeper cost cuts over NUM's demands

Johannesburg - Power utility Eskom's latest pay hike offer could lead the cash-strapped company into deeper cost cuts, the state-owned firm said on Thursday.

Eskom confirmed that it had offered to pay 7% more to all blue-collar workers, upping its offer from 5.75%, during negotiations with workers represented by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

Deeper cuts

Eskom's spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe said the energy regulator had recommended in 2012 that it links wage increases to inflation.

The present offer by the utility is above inflation, which stands at 6.1%.

"The 7% offer we have in place is beyond what the regulator indicated to us...the regulator had given us a type of benchmark for inflation-linked increases," he said.

"Now that we exceeded the offer by at least one percent point, we will have to make deeper cuts elsewhere so that we don't affect our financial liquidity negatively," Phasiwe said.

Eskom plans to reduce costs by R61bn over the next three years, Phasiwe said, adding that the company had already cut back on travel and some of its executives were no longer flying first class. He said the firm would look for new areas to cut costs but did not elaborate.

Pay increase

Eskom, which provides virtually all of the electricity in Africa's most industrialised country, faced a crippling cash crunch last year that prompted an R80bn injection by the government.

NUM has said it would seek the views of its members on the latest pay increase. The union had initially demanded a 15% raise for its lowest paid members and a 13% raise for its highest paid staff.

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