Eskom admits it will struggle to afford wage deal

Numsa, Solidarity and NUM clinched a wage deal of 7% on Tuesday, ending a two-week-long protest which triggered prolonged stage 6 load shedding. 

 READ: NUM, Numsa accept Eskom’s 7% wage offer

The housing allowance will also increase by R400. 

William Mabapa from the National Union of Mineworkers says they are hopeful workers will go back to work. 

"When we request workers to go back to work I'm sure we will all appreciate certain power stations are back. To my knowledge it was only four stations where they  didn't return and will focus on those four and plea with the workers that an agreement has been signed, their fight has been resolved therefore they must go back to work."

Meanwhile, Eskom's spokesperson Sikhonathi Mantshantsha says they'll need to find an extra R1 billion to fund the new wage deal.

 "The overall effect of this agreement on the wage deal will be more than R1 billion over the period of the agreement. This of course will be a struggle for Eskom to afford.

"It is important to note that while the workforce returns to work the system will take time to recover, as a result of the strike maintenance work had to be postponed and this backlog will take time to clear."

Stage 4 of the power cuts began on Tuesday morning and will continue until 4pm. 

We'll move to stage 5 next and then it's back to stage 4 from 10 tonight for two hours. 

We'll follow the same pattern on Thursday. 

But Eskom says it will make a decision on what needs to be done between Friday and Sunday as more generation units return to service.