Eskom employees missed out on bonuses this year, spokesman Khulu Phasiwe confirmed on Monday, adding that its AGM will take place in the first week of August 2015.
“It is true that we are not assigning bonuses,” he said. “It would be wrong to give bonuses if we don’t have money and especially during this time. The regulator (Nersa) said we need to improve efficiencies. We don’t have the money and we did not meet the targets.”
He said there were a number of key performance targets that were not met, such as avoiding load shedding. “You can’t reward people for not meeting their targets,” he said.
Phasiwe hoped the move would also send out a strong message that Eskom was committed to getting its house in order, while not being reckless. “We can’t go over and offer things we don’t have and we can’t be reckless.”
Eskom head of human resources Matome Makwela told staff in an e-mail that Eskom had not hit its money saving targets, which was set at R9,8bn, and that the required availability factor of 77% fell short at 73,3%, according the Sunday Times. Load shedding was said to be too high at 17%, compared to a 10% goal.
Eskom has been criticised in the past for giving high bonuses to executives who were not meeting targets.
The payment of about R10,8m in “incentives” last year to 10 top Eskom officials was challenged by the Democratic Alliance in March 2015, with the party calling for the executives to pay back the money.
“The DA has previously called for Eskom executives to pay back the estimated R63m they have been rewarded with since load shedding began in 2008. We see no reason why this call is not applicable in this circumstance,” DA MP Natasha Mazzone said at the time.
Eskom has yet to release its financial results for the year ended March 2015, but Phasiwe said Eskom was “still within our time”.
“We will be issuing our financial results in the first week of August,” he said.
Eskom will hold a closed annual general meeting (AGM) in Cape Town and then will hold an official press conference to “share how the company has performed” the following day in Johannesburg.
“It is not unusual to hold a closed AGM,” he said. “The only difference this year is that we will hold the two events on separate days, when before it would take place on the same day.” — Fin24
