Outages take their toll
With Eskom saying it will likely continue to implement loadshedding until at least July, businesses and households will continue to bear the brunt of the power utility’s scheduled power cuts. Sisanda Mrubata spoke to Buffalo City Metro residents about how load shedding has affected them: Rosi Jones, 49, said: “I have started to adapt to this change. Most of the time it is not pleasant, but we plan ahead, and what happens is that instead of taking things for granted, we now plan around the schedule times.” Mgubuli Maqondwana, 79, said: “You arrive home and find that there is no electricity. I am a farmer and use machines to milk our cows, and when there is no electricity, it means that we cannot use our equipment and have to get the work done by hand, which is very time consuming. This means that time is lost for other farm responsibilities.”
Alfredo Naidoo, 52, said: “It has affected my business. My fiance’s hair salon has had to close indefinitely because it runs on electricity. My offices are affected in that I cannot make or receive phone calls or faxes. It is detrimental to business and is not good for our struggling economy.”
Frances Brodie, 29, said: “I’m a web designer and I work from home. My work is affected because everything happens online, and that cannot happen without the internet, and sometimes the work already done is lost.”