On the recapitalisation on Eskom, Mavuso said it was better to bring in strategic equity partners because Eskom problems were too big for the fiscus to contain.

“We continue getting warnings from the credit rating agencies to say that the money you keep on putting into these SOEs - Eskom in particular - doesn't augur well from an investment perspective and from an economy perspective,” she said.

She said labour should not continue to “sit there as principals with a red pen” and think that they don't have any role to play in saving Eskom.

“We made this decision as this board last year to say that we are going to give 0% increase because we realised the dire situation of Eskom. It was labour that said, 'If you dare do that, it's going to be a declaration of war'.

"Immediately thereafter, you saw the bout of the first load-shedding that happened in this country. We were quickly given an instruction to say, 'You are going to have to rethink your decision and you are going to revise your 0% stance.' But you are sitting with this developmental state mandate - and I don't know if we actually can continue in that trajectory."

Mavuso said Eskom was sitting with 15,000 people too many. She said the headcount was unjustifiable and labour threatens war whenever this issue is raised. She said this was part of the honest conversation the country needs to have about Eskom.

“It cannot be. I think we shouldn't be skirting around the issue when we talk about the issues of Eskom,” she said.