The Black Business Council (BBC) has warned that electricity blackouts and the 18,65% tariff increase would lead to more jobs being lost as small businesses buckled under the weight of Eskom's stage 6 loadshedding.
"There’s no electricity, and a lot of small business are closing down. A lot of these are the ones creating employment," BBC CEO Kganki Matabane said on Sunday.
"The increase granted to Eskom [by the National Energy Regulator of SA] was unfortunate because South Africans without electricity are now forced to pay for something that's unavailable.
Matabane said the "70% youth unemployment rate is likely to increase because most of these young people are employed by small businesses. As they close, the economy will shrink, unemployment will go up and poverty will increase which then means other social ills such as crime will go up.
"If it was us who considered the Eskom increase, we wouldn't have increased. Eskom should find other alternatives, such as a national Treasury so that they can get money to do maintenance so they can fix power stations so we can stop load shedding."
Rolling blackouts have brought businesses to their knees all over SA as business owners continue to lose out on hours of productivity while those selling fresh produce are faced with rotting stock.
Gabara Mutshidzi, who owns a small supermarket in Thulamela, Limpopo, said he'd had to sell frozen goods such as meats and vegetables at a very low price to avoid the eventuality of it rotting in the fridges.
“When the power goes off, everything starts to melt. Sometimes the electricity goes off for up to six hours, which does not correspond with the loadshedding schedule.”
He said he was starting to see fewer customers walking through their doors as people opted to buy from bigger retail stores which have generators and other power backup.
Another income stream for his business, selling Lotto tickets, has also suffered as the machine works only for a limited time without electricity.
Vicky Tjale, the owner of Tuscan Guesthouse in Polokwane, is just as frustrated. Tjale, who also owns a travel agency, said trying to secure bookings when the internet and phone lines are down was a nightmare.
“We can’t even send quotations on time or make confirmations with hotels. It’s just a mess,” Tjale complained.
She said she'd had to let go of two staff members because of financial difficulties and that doing basic things like warming up food for guests was a challenge.
Soweto Creamery owner Thando Makhubu, who famously used the R350 social relief distress grant to start the business, said the situation was both terrible and costly.
"There was one weekend that we spent just over R1,000 on petrol. We're lucky we have a generator, but the overheads are rising.
"We're also looking into investing in a 10kw invertor with lithium batteries, but that's gonna be super pricey. The best quotation we got is just over R100,000. We cannot carry on like this. It's killing everything around us, especially small businesses," said Makhubu.
Brian Makwaiba, owner of Vuleka Platform in Wynberg, a distribution company delivering goods to township businesses, said at times they could not receive orders as they came in via an app.
"If there is loadshedding, we can’t get orders. We also distribute perishable goods and this is a problem now because if there's four hours of loadshedding, our products go off. Communicating with our customers also becomes impossible because there's no network. I don’t think we'll be able to keep up like this for a couple of months," Makwaiba said.
Tshidi Mokoena, owner of Emapapeni Food Court, a restaurant and events place in Orlando East, Soweto, said: "Earlier this week I had to throw away 10kg of boerewors. Whenever there is a power cut, we experience four hours of darkness. This resulted in some of the meat going rotten. This is really painful,’’ said Mokoena.
Monwabisi Bendile, of Skype Lounge in Orlando East, Soweto, was considering closing his business temporarily. He said he could not continue the way things were going.
Frans Mnisi, director of Nyeleti Funeral Services in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, said he'd had to ask other funeral undertakers who have generators for the use of their cold room storage facilities for his business operations as he does not have a generator.
"I would drive to Hazyview twice a week to use storage facilities of other funeral parlour owners who have generators. This is costly as I have to spend petrol money for transport, which I could be saving and using for my business operations,’’ said Mnisi.
newsdesk@sowetan.co.za
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