The millions Eskom spent on its staff parties was "unacceptable”, environmental group Greenpeace said on Monday (09/07/2012).
"It is completely unacceptable that Eskom spends money on parties, while the people of this country face skyrocketing electricity prices, and more than 12 million South Africans still don’t have access to electricity,” it said in a statement.
”The latest revelation by City Press about Eskom’s spending spree confirms the arguments Greenpeace continues to make, that as Eskom has become increasingly commercialised and biased towards producing electricity for energy-intensive industry, overall accountability has decreased.”
The City Press reported on Sunday that the parastatal spent over R36 million on seven ”family fun days” since October last year.
This included awarding a R4m contract to a company to plan and organise five "generational family days” for almost 12,000 people in Gauteng. Fun days were also held in Witbank in Mpumalanga, Lephalale in Limpopo, Cape Town, and Durban.
Eskom spokeswoman Hillary Joffe told the newspaper the fun days were to thank employees for their hard work and commitment to "keeping the lights on”.
Greenpeace’s climate and energy campaigner Melita Steele said the parastatal was not serious about producing affordable energy for the country.
"Eskom’s power is clearly not people’s power... Eskom continues to profit, and invest in massive new coal-fired power stations, while the people of this country pay the price.” - Sapa
