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Cape Town - Eskom has acknowledged that mistakes have been made in the construction of both the Kusile and Medupi coal-fired power stations and the state-owned enterprise is taking action to penalise contractors for failing to do their work properly, acting CEO Collin Matjila said on Tuesday.
While he came under a determined onslaught from Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party and Economic Freedom Fighters MPs on the national assembly energy portfolio committee earlier on Tuesday, Matjila would not be drawn on the mounting costs of significant delays at the Mpumalanga and Limpopo power stations.
DA energy spokesperson Lance Greyling charged that the delays – caused by labour strikes at Medupi and Kusile and construction problems blamed by Matjila on the contracting parties – had cost about R120bn and a similar amount for Kusile; Matjila did not put a rand figure to the costs.
But he admitted to the committee - chaired by ANC MP Fikile Majola - that Eskom had made “mistakes”. To ensure that there were no “unscheduled slips” in future, Eskom has conducted “elaborate agreements” forged with workers employed by the contractors and sub-contractors on projects.
These were forged after “painstaking negotiations”, he acknowledged.
Asked by Inkatha MP Jan Esterhuizen why the power monopoly had not been protected from recent strike action, Matjila pointed out that Eskom workers were indeed not permitted to strike. The striking workers were “employees of the contractors” and were not “essential service workers… they are allowed to strike”.
Eskom was now confident, however, that there was a “much better relationship between Eskom, the contractors and the workers”. Matjila believed that there was now support for the build programme which would ensure the delivery of “all these projects”.
Greyling said that Medupi was at least 14 months behind the latest schedule, while the IFP MP said he did not believe Medupi would be on stream this year either.
Matjila said action was being taken against companies that had not met their schedules, but these actions and counter-claims had also led to further project delays.
At Medupi there had been serious delays because of boiler welding glitches.
“We have learnt some painful lessons… we have put in measures (to ensure) that we avoid any repetition of those lessons,” said Matjila. Eskom had put monitoring systems in place which included determining “what is happening at the workshops”.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa went on a national strike in July which affected Kusile and Medupi. Murray & Roberts, which is involved in the boiler installation at both plants, reported that about 1 400 workers at Kusile were on strike at the time and about 800 stayed away from work at Medupi.
The strike in the metal sector lasted a month, with most workers getting a 10% pay hike.
The energy committee was told that they were likely to face power instability for the next five years. Matjila said the power monopoly’s turnaround plans would only be completed by 2019.
The entity had “a comprehensive plan to accelerate the performance of our... plants by attacking the unplanned outages that are the result of... deferred maintenance as well as poor performance by the contractors”, Matjila said.
- Fin24
While he came under a determined onslaught from Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party and Economic Freedom Fighters MPs on the national assembly energy portfolio committee earlier on Tuesday, Matjila would not be drawn on the mounting costs of significant delays at the Mpumalanga and Limpopo power stations.
DA energy spokesperson Lance Greyling charged that the delays – caused by labour strikes at Medupi and Kusile and construction problems blamed by Matjila on the contracting parties – had cost about R120bn and a similar amount for Kusile; Matjila did not put a rand figure to the costs.
But he admitted to the committee - chaired by ANC MP Fikile Majola - that Eskom had made “mistakes”. To ensure that there were no “unscheduled slips” in future, Eskom has conducted “elaborate agreements” forged with workers employed by the contractors and sub-contractors on projects.
These were forged after “painstaking negotiations”, he acknowledged.
Asked by Inkatha MP Jan Esterhuizen why the power monopoly had not been protected from recent strike action, Matjila pointed out that Eskom workers were indeed not permitted to strike. The striking workers were “employees of the contractors” and were not “essential service workers… they are allowed to strike”.
Eskom was now confident, however, that there was a “much better relationship between Eskom, the contractors and the workers”. Matjila believed that there was now support for the build programme which would ensure the delivery of “all these projects”.
Greyling said that Medupi was at least 14 months behind the latest schedule, while the IFP MP said he did not believe Medupi would be on stream this year either.
Matjila said action was being taken against companies that had not met their schedules, but these actions and counter-claims had also led to further project delays.
At Medupi there had been serious delays because of boiler welding glitches.
“We have learnt some painful lessons… we have put in measures (to ensure) that we avoid any repetition of those lessons,” said Matjila. Eskom had put monitoring systems in place which included determining “what is happening at the workshops”.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa went on a national strike in July which affected Kusile and Medupi. Murray & Roberts, which is involved in the boiler installation at both plants, reported that about 1 400 workers at Kusile were on strike at the time and about 800 stayed away from work at Medupi.
The strike in the metal sector lasted a month, with most workers getting a 10% pay hike.
The energy committee was told that they were likely to face power instability for the next five years. Matjila said the power monopoly’s turnaround plans would only be completed by 2019.
The entity had “a comprehensive plan to accelerate the performance of our... plants by attacking the unplanned outages that are the result of... deferred maintenance as well as poor performance by the contractors”, Matjila said.
- Fin24
