ELECTRICITY Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has promised Eskom workers incentives if they improve performance.
He said this on Monday, 6 November during his visit to Arnot Power Station in Mpumalanga.
Ramokgopa also visited Hendrina Power Station. The visits were a follow-up to the initial rounds of visits that Ramokgopa undertook upon his appointment as the minister of electricity in March 2023.
During the visit, the minister sought to acquire more insights into the challenges facing the power stations in order to advance the necessary interventions.
He said if the workers continued the good work, they would then be rewarded and enjoy a better Christmas with their families.
"If you continue the good work, the better the performance, the better the incentives. You'd see it in your pockets. Once you give us the kind of progress and improvement that we want, you will see that your families will be happy. We are going to enjoy a better Christmas. Let us make it possible that we undermine load shedding. There is nothing embarrassing, nothing that undermines the credibility of our work than what happened over the past weeks.
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"We maintained eight days of no load shedding. The springboks won to France. They won the Rugby World Cup, brought the Webb Ellis trophy and a day after, there was load shedding. An average person would think that the load shedding suspension was purely for people needing to watch rugby. That had nothing to do with rugby but everything to do with performances of these units," he said.
Ramokgopa said what has resulted to load shedding has undermined the ability and prospects of allowing matric pupils to write their exams seamlessly.
He further urged workers and other stakeholders working at Arnot to do better and improve their performance to 60% and above. He said he was happy with the interventions and believed the power station will make progress.
He said: "We can do much better. This is still it enough. We will fight and defeat load shedding because we are competent. Our work put together, we will make sure that we defeat load shedding. He slammed the small groups that continue to sabotage the work done, stating that the government will continue to fight corruption in the power utility."
Ramokgopa is expected to visit Kriel and Matla power stations on Wednesday, 8 November.
