Eskom spent over R1m on T-shirts

Ke Nako - now is the time Eskom has released figures on how much exactly they spent on Bafana Bafana T-shirts for staff.

Last week, the Sunday Times established that the embattled power utility paid R550000 on a bulk consignment of replica shirts from Adidas for certain staff, including managers, "employees at lower levels including union members" and executives.

This week, its media desk confirmed that it had spent R976200 to reimburse 1627 staff members who purchased T-shirts at retail stores, which brings the total spend on the yellow and green garments to more than R1.5-million.

This is in addition to R12-million spent on 2010 Fifa World Cup Tickets.

Divisional executives decided who would receive T-shirts and notified staff via e-mail.

Eskom spokesman Andrew Etzinger said their plan to reward staff for their hard work during the World Cup with a T-shirt had been discussed and accepted by the unions.

But last week unions lambasted Eskom for wasting money.

Lesiba Seshoka, a spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, denied that they had entered into agreements regarding T-shirts or tickets.

"It is shocking that they would give an employee who had to cancel his leave and work overtime a T-shirt as part of his reward. So the employee might have a T-shirt but goes home to a shack?"