Construction of Medupi Power Station delayed due to strike

Loyiso Langeni
08 April 2015

As the strike at the Medupi Power Station continues Eskom says the strike is illegal.

Last month about one-thousand-seven-hundred employees received written warnings and some fired after they embarked on an unprotected strike.

Construction of the power station has been delayed in recent months following a series of strikes. 

Eskom’s Spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe said “from our side of the company we have not formally received any notification from the unions, if that is correct that they are going on a strike action, then obviously it will be illegal industrial action and the necessary disciplinary measure will have to be followed.”

Meanwhile Eskom said the possibility of load-shedding is very high today.

He said that, on Tuesday the power utility implemented stage one load- shedding in the evening due to a shortage of generation capacity as several units are currently out of service due to planned and unplanned outages.

Eskom Spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe said we are expecting our generators to come back later this afternoon.

"If that happens it might help us to reduce the risk of load shedding but in the interim we are asking all customers to continue to use electricity sparingly, so that we can mitigate against the risk of load shedding.” Phasiwe added.