Businesses suffer in week-long outage
Businesses in Komani are grinding to a halt as a power outage enters its eighth day.
A large portion of the Enoch Mgijima municipality-run town previously known as Queenstown last had electricity on Tuesday last week.
An exploding municipal transformer and damaged cable triggered the crisis.
On Monday, the town’s CBD was dominated by the sound of clattering generators and the sight of closed shops.
Many corporate stores had drawn their shutters.
Enoch Mgijima municipal spokesperson Fundile Feketshane appeared to shift the responsibility to Eskom, saying the municipality had requested a transformer from Eskom to replace the damaged one but the one offered by the utility was leaking and needed to be repaired in East London.
“The projections are that the community affected should be back on the municipal grid by Wednesday,” he said.
Adré Bartis, representing the Komani branch of the Border-Kei Chamber of Business, said 139 members were reporting huge losses in trade.
The smaller, independent businesses felt the pain as they could not afford to haemorrhage R10,000 a day on diesel for generators, Bartis said.
She lambasted the municipality for not having a crisis management response or plan.
Bartis said offers from the chamber to help the municipality were brushed aside.
Residential areas were also affected, while some of the most unhappy customers were arms of government itself.
Home affairs provincial spokesperson Gcinile Mabhulu said: “This is affecting our performance target.” –