Hear our cry: Small business owners call on government to resolve load shedding

Sema Fonkem 02/07/2023

Since late 2007, South Africans have been adjusting to load shedding caused by the poor maintenance of Eskom coal plants that are now old. This has taken a toll on many small businesses. These business owners complain that load shedding affects their business operations negatively and on a daily basis.

After South Africa was hit by COVID-19, many shops in the Edenvale area did close as rents could not be paid. Alan Nurse, the owner of East Rand Vending shop that sells ice cream says he facing a crisis due to load shedding. From 2022 to date, power cuts have gone up to 10 hours a day from level 1 to 6. “In my business, all I have done is to buy ice packs to keep the ice cream cold during power cuts. I also bought a freezer which freezes the ice cream to – 42 degrees for the ice cream to stay frozen during longer hours power cuts” Nurse tells me I as interview him. “My ice cream used to melt sometimes and when I could not sell them, I lost some good money.”

Further down the road in the Edenvale area, another business owner, Jenny Vister has similar worries. She has just newly joined her carwash business. She says things are very slow due to load shedding because fewer cars get washed and that is not good for the company’s finance as she makes only a third of the regular income.

“What we do here is that we use a horse pipe to wash cars, the water pressure is very low but it helps us and also we use a brush to clean cars instead of the vacuum cleaner when lights go off.”

These business owners and others warn that there will be loss of jobs if power cuts do continue and this will affect the country’s economy badly. Small businesses are seen to provide for many families and make a third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Recently, there have been protests carried out by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party in the economic capital, Johannesburg, as power cuts continue to frustrate South Africans with many people going to bed hungry. “They cannot move the country to greater heights and reduce unemployment if the government does not hold Eskom responsible to put an end to load shedding.” Vister said.

Many South Africans who want to keep their lights on for personal and business activities have been hoping that things will change and Eskom will be come up with a final solution to bring an end to their sufferings caused by load shedding.

“I am not sure that Eskom at this point can really do anything better because this has been going for a very long time and load shedding is putting the people of South Africa through a lot of pain.” Nurse told me as I asked him if he was optimistic that Eskom can reduce power cuts.