Business owners hit as Eskom pulls plug
BUSINESSES are starting to feel the load-shedding crisis, with several counting their losses after not being able to trade yesterday as a result of the power outages.
Eskom implemented Stage 2 load shedding on Sunday, which quickly ramped up to Stage 4 by midday yesterday. A worker at the Mokgotsi laundry service in Windsor East, Joburg, said the outage was extremely inconvenient and the business was losing a lot of money.
“Many people have come to collect their items, but we obviously are unable to return them because there is no electricity and they are unimpressed,” said the worker, who identified himself as Sipho. “We have currently lost close to R1 000 in the time we have not been able to operate.”
A bottle store in the area was also closed – much to the annoyance of their customers.
Store manager Samantha Makasa said many customers were left stranded and disgruntled by the closure.
“As you can see, there is an influx of customers waiting outside. Even if the power had to come back now, our beverages will be hot and customers are going to complain. The machines take about 30 minutes to reboot, so that is a loss to us,” said Makasa.
Store owner Akter Jaman said his vegetables and meat were going off and the drinks were not at the correct temperature, leaving customers unimpressed. Power went out at about 9am yesterday, and by 11am a stench had filled the shop.
Energy Expert Coalition contributor Ted Blom said Eskom was in “deep trouble”.
“Stage 4 is 4 000MW down, and that means that they’ve basically lost about 12% of the available capacity, and that’s a dire situation.
“Stage 4 means that on average about 15%-20% of the country is going to be offline at any one time,” said Blom.
He said the last time there was Stage 4 load shedding was in 2014/15, and before that in January 2008.
“At the moment they’ve got maintenance and operational problems.
“At the same time they’ve also got coal problems, and they won’t have coal sorted for at least five years – until they’ve signed the mine agreements, and they haven’t even signed the first one yet.”
Blom added that the power utility needed to find about 10 million tons of coal a month to get 100 million tons a year.
“They knew it was coming. I’ve been in discussions with Eskom and I warned them about this nonsense, but they just seem to be blasé about it and are not taking it seriously,” he said.
Yesterday, the DA demanded a parliamentary debate on the crisis gripping the power utility.
Senior DA MP Natasha Mazzone said it was imperative that it took place before Thursday, when President Cyril Ramaphosa would reply to the debate on the State of the Nation Address he delivered last week.