BPC to axe 187 jobs
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday June 5, 2015 10:20
Sources within the corporation revealed that the exercise, to be implemented between July and September this year, might be part of the BPC’s move to engage an Irish management consultant that will take over the running of the power utility.
“The introduction of smart metres has made a lot of jobs particularly in customer service department redundant.
I also understand the engagement of an Irish company, which has been in the pipeline since last year, is about to be completed once administrative issues are sorted.
They (the Irish) might already be in the building as we speak,” said the source, who declined to be identified saying he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The introduction of smart metres, which enabled the switch to pre-paid electricity use, has eliminated the need for billing of power users as well as the physical metre readers.
The Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Kitso Mokaila recently told the media that the management contracts with the Irish company, Electricity Supply Board International (ESBI) was almost finalised as it was only left with a cabinet approval. Information reaching BusinessWeek is that last week, the corporation’s management held a meeting with some union members to discuss the retrenchments.
According to the source, the union has already written a formal complaint to management expressing their discontentment at the way the exercise was being handled.
In the letter of complaint, it is reported that the union demanded that there be a consultation meeting with the staff members.
When asked to comment, outgoing union secretary general, Kebohitlhetse Lentswe and incoming union chairman, Reginald Kolwane, referred all enquiries to the corporation’s management.
Repeated efforts over a three-week period to get a response to an emailed questionnaire to BPC Communications Manager, Spencer Moreri, were not fruitful.
In an earlier interview, BPC board chairperson, Sebetela Sebetela, told Business Week that among ESBI’s first tasks would be a human resource capacity evaluation exercise of the parastatal to determine which staff is retained or retrenched. Responding to fears that engagement of the management contract will usher in massive retrenchments at BPC, Sebetela said among ESBI deliverables will be ensuring that not only adequate human resource capacity is built within the parastatal, but also necessary changes are made.
“Our intention is not to chop any jobs, but as with any transformation process there would be situations where some staff would have difficulties in transitioning from where they are to where they need to be,” he said.
BPC employs around 2,000 workers. According to Sebetela, some of ESBI’S key deliverables would be the completion of strategic projects such as the planned Morupule C and the Greenfield 300MW power plant.
Turning around of the financial performance of the parastatal, which posted an ‘artificial’ profit of P114.1 million for the year ended March 31, 2014, thanks to a P1.49 billion government bailout, would be some of the Irish firm’s mandates.
The BPC is statutorily required to operate as a going concern with its act specifying that it should conduct its affairs on ‘sound commercial lines and produce a net operating income by which a reasonable return can be measured’.