Eskom’s rolling blackouts are killing the economy

The consequences of Stage 4 load shedding

LOCAL businesses are suffering serious losses, motorists have to deal with traffic jams and critically ill patients are facing dire consequences, as a result of Eskom implementing Stage4 load shedding.

For a New Germany resident, Stage4 load shedding could literally kill her elderly mother.

At the weekend, Mandy Viljoen had to fork out R2 500 for a new canister for her mother’s oxygen tank, which she uses 24 hours a day.

Viljoen’s mother, Margaret Jansen, suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and relies on an oxygen tank to breathe.

The tank needs electricity and Stage4 load shedding, which can lead to power cuts of up to three times a day in one area, had a huge impact on their family, Jansen said.

“At the weekend, we got an alert about Stage 4 load shedding and the place where we usually get her cylinders from was running low. We managed to borrow a portable oxygen cylinder but if they called us to ask for it back, my mom would have had no oxygen to use when load shedding kicked in,” she said.

Local businesses have also reported suffering losses as a result of the rolling blackouts that see them without electricity for much of the day.

Charisse Boshoff, the co-owner of Mooki Noodles in Glenwood, said they were often left without power for hours on end.

“We use fresh produce for our meals and have to rely on inverters and batteries for our kitchen staff to see what they are doing. We have lost a lot of stock. In February, we had to throw away R5 000 worth of stock due to power outages,” she said.

An employee of a printing shop in the area said they’d had had to refer business to their competitors.

“Load shedding has had a major impact on us as we have less turnaround time for our print work. These jobs can cost anything from R2 to R20 000 per day. When the lights do come back on, it takes a while for our machines to start up and then you find we barely start a job and the lights go back off,” he said.

He added that they are also having to work overtime just to meet the deadlines given by their clients.

Highway resident Maryna Begemann, who runs a laundromat, said they only had electricity for a few hours each day.

“It is holiday time and this is the only time of the year that we really make some money. We only have two machines working and we are trying to get something done,” Begemann said.

Load shedding has also had a major impact on traffic in and around the city.

Glenashley resident Patrick Coyne said that with load shedding, motorists were often confused at intersections and there were no pointsmen to help.

“Older citizens may remember that in years gone past, whenever a traffic light failed, very soon if not immediately, a point-duty traffic policeman would arrive at the scene and begin directing the traffic, smartly and efficiently,” he said.

The president of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Musa Makhunga, said load shedding was having a significant disruptive effect and negative impact on the local and regional economy, as Durban and the province played host to some of the country’s largest manufacturing and industrial companies.

“It has been reported that, over the last three days, load shedding has cost the country approximately R12 billion. Durban and South Africa simply cannot afford load shedding. This current crisis is resulting in severe short- and long-term socio-economic consequences for our country,” he said.

SOUTH Africa’s power crunch, which has seen state-owned utility Eskom implement rotational blackouts to avoid a collapse of the national grid is largely because of a lack of maintenance of Eskom’s ageing infrastructure, officials said yesterday .

Eskom continued implementing rolling blackouts yesterday as its creaking generating units – several of them more than 35 years old – struggled to supply enough power in a crisis likely to hurt the ailing economy.

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said it was going to be a huge struggle to overcome the crisis.

“We understand the frustration. We don’t have a magic formula,” he told a news conference, noting that while Eskom had 48000 megawatt of capacity, only 28 000MW was available.

Gordhan and Eskom chairman Jabu Mabuza conceded that Eskom had not spent enough on maintaining its equipment over the past five years, while new plants, Medupi and Kusile, had not come on line.

“Money was not spent on maintenance, the question has to be what was that money spent on,” Mabuza said. “The reality is that we now have a plant that is falling off, owing to no maintenance.”

Both acknowledged that Eskom had not communicated its problems to the public fully and Gordhan committed to providing another update in about 14 days on how the current problems would be resolved.

In a statement earlier yesterday, Eskom said it was again implementing “stage 4” load shedding, which effectively involves suppressing 4 000MW of demand on a rotational basis to avoid collapsing the national grid.

“Eskom’s maintenance teams are working round the clock to return generation units to the electricity system,” it said.

Eskom supplies 95% of South Africa’s electricty needs but the cash-strapped utility has struggled to do this in recent years.

Several former senior officials have also been forced out after being implicated in corruption.

“There’s still a lot of accountability that needs to take place,” Gordhan said yesterday. “The previous CEO and his colleagues at that time have a lot to explain to South Africa.”

He said the crunch had been worsened by the lack of supply from neighbouring Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa because of damage caused by tropical storm Cyclone Idai.

As South Africans grappled with the electricity shortages, the DA said it would engage Johannesburg residents on issues they faced on a daily basis, “especially load shedding, which then leads to jobs-shedding”.

“The collapse of Eskom and its effects on the economy can be laid squarely at the feet of Eskom,” it said in a statement.

The Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the new round of “extreme load shedding” gave businesses and municipalities no option but to look for other suppliers of electricity.

“Business needs electricity to survive,” its president Geoff Jacobs said.

“This has created a situation where roof-top solar looks more attractive every month and where municipalities like Cape Town want to make use of independent power producers. They have no choice.”

“The long-term effects will be bad for Eskom, the country and for the taxpayers but what else can businesses do?

“They have to deal with the situation now and not wait for Eskom to finally get on top of its deep-seated problems and reverse its recent history of corruption and mismanagement.” |