BY Nkosazana Ngwadla
When Eskom introduced load-shedding, the lives of many South Africans completely changed. Some of the people who are at the receiving end of the shortest sticks are small business owners. The Fuse spoke to a few of these entrepreneurs to find out how regular power cuts affect the running of their businesses.
Zenzele Hair Salon
Mary owns a hair salon in Mdantsane, East London in the Eastern Cape, and without a generator, her business is hardly making the profit it used to. “The constant lack of electricity means I can’t let clients walk in because I can’t use any of the equipment on their hair. And now, the expenses of the business are unmoving. The rent alone is something we can barely keep up with. It’s terrible, I’ve got three employees whose families depend on their salaries. There have been instances where I had to buy groceries for some of my employees from my own pocket – it’s really bad. What’s more upsetting is in other parts of the country, power cuts happen for only two hours at a time, but here in the Eastern Cape, it’s three hours, standard. Don’t even get me started on the water outages as well, what a nightmare!”
Andile’s Handyman Work
Andile has always been very handy, and when his mother told him she couldn’t afford his education, he decided to turn his talent into a career. Being a handyman has been putting food on the table all his life. But now, load-shedding is threatening that. “I use electricity for most of my work, and every hour there’s no electricity, that’s money out of my pocket. I have a wife and three children, and I really want my children to have an education, but if I can’t work, I can’t provide that for them. It really breaks my heart – especially because it looks like this is the new norm for our country. And the people who can do something about it don’t care about everyday people, ordinary people like us. We don’t expect handouts, but we need our basic needs to be met so we’re able to work.”
Nobulali’s Nail Salon
“I run my nail tech business from home to save on rent costs and things like that. Every single time there’s a power cut, I have to sit and do nothing for two hours, sometimes three times a day! It’s ridiculous. The level of youth unemployment in South Africa is already sickening, and when we try to come up with ways to make a living, things like power cuts hinder our growth. It’s easy to just then give up, but I hope this doesn’t deter us from our goals – things will come around, hopefully.”
Eskom was unavailable to comment at time of publish. Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha has previously commented on load shedding, saying that the continuous implementation of the deliberate power cuts by Eskom is mainly due to the need to preserve emergency generation reserves owing to a high level of breakdowns and the delay in returning some generating units to service.
