We recently looked into Eskom’s Medupi plant.

It’s basically a shining monument to incompetence which has been more trouble than it’s worth.

During the height of load shedding, the plant was plagued with a number of major problems that rendered it almost useless.

Eskom tried to downplay it, but they couldn’t keep it under wraps for long.

Here’s the thing about Eskom – they’ve tried to downplay a lot of their problems.

One of the major issues that they’re facing is an overinflated workforce that appears to do very little when it comes to running the company.

MyBroadband has more from Eskom Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer.

Oberholzer admitted that productivity at Eskom is much lower than what it used to be, and that this is a big concern.

He said that 11 years ago, Eskom employed less than 30,000 people. This is now sitting at 44,000 employees, while the company is also paying for contractors to keep the lights on.

The bloated workforce and high operating costs have left Eskom technically bankrupt, and their attempts to reduce workers have been met with opposition from unions.

To try and find a middle ground, they’re attempting to increase productivity amongst existing staff.

The fact that there are so many people working there, some of whom seem incapable of doing their jobs, is what’s really disturbing here.

Productivity at a power plant can be measured by looking at the power generation per employee.

In 2004, Eskom produced 232,443GWh of electricity with 31,475 employees. Fast forward 15 years and Eskom is now producing 218,939GWh with 46,665 employees.

This means that the power generation per employee declined from 7.39GWh in 2004 to a current level of 4.69GWh.

In graph form, this really drives the point home:

MyBroadband

That’s a massive dip in productivity. Much like our bloated government, it’s also unsustainable.

Here’s another damning Eskom image, for those who are interested.

What I really want to know is what Eskom employees do all day?

[source:mybroadband]