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CAPE TOWN. — More than 5 000 striking Eskom workers have returned to work at a major power station, a positive move as the country is grappling with a worsening shortage of electricity supply, authorities said yesterday.The latest development “paves the way for the recovery of the past eight weeks of lost production time” at the Medupi Power Station in Limpopo Province, the national electricity utility Eskom said.

The workers went on an illegal strike last month to press their demand for complete bonus given to all workers, not only to senior managers, an end to retrenchments of workers and a halt to racialised evictions of workers from their subsidised accommodation.

Last Friday, the North Gauteng High Court ruled in favour of Eskom for the eviction of all persons residing in all three of Eskom’s accommodation areas around the Medupi Power Station, as well as interdicting the return of these employees back to the accommodation areas.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), which had appealed the eviction order, was ordered to pay Eskom’s legal costs.

The industrial action hampered maintenance work at Unit 6 of the Medupi station, worsening the shortage of power supply that started in November last year when the Medupi station collapsed along with another power station due to poor maintenance.

South Africans have been subjected to constant rolling blackouts ever since.

“After the end of the strike, Medupi Unit 6 will be progressively tested and fine-tuned until the engineers are satisfied that the systems are fully operable and reliable for final handover,” Eskom said.

“This is also to ensure that the unit is safe to operate and will perform exactly as designed for the next 50 years,” said the state-run parastatal. — Xinhua.