OPINION: Two key things happen with privatised public services, no matter what form it takes: retrenchments often, if not always, occur, and prices as often go up and up.
I am an irreconcilable opponent of the dirty, dangerous and damaging environmental and human costs of coal-fired power stations, which is why moves towards renewable energy must be fully supported. That is the first political point to make. But there are powerful vested interests in coal mining, and therefore such a miserable status quo continues, regardless of its consequences to workers, community health and the environment.
In this respect one has to ask: what really happens to the service in this process? Who delivers it and on what basis? Is it treated as a commodity that is sold at a price, or is it a public good not denied, adequately, to those who are poor and cannot afford to pay? I think this is Numsa’s legitimate fear. What is called the Independent Power Producers represent, in particular, a threat of steadily increasing and encroaching privatisation of Eskom.
It appears they see it as a calculated part of setting the scene for the “unbundling” and its associated but incremental and subtle privatisation. An incremental process of privatisation through the IPPs gaining an ever-increasing share of the energy market might thus be a hidden agenda. It will also probably be severely counterproductive in ways that will ultimately hurt not only unionised workers involved most, but poor communities too, when power stations are actually sabotaged.
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