Durban — KwaZulu-Natal’s chambers of commerce and industry have raised fears of further business hardships following Eskom’s implementation of stage 6 load shedding.
On Sunday, the country woke to the unfortunate news that Eskom had implemented stage 6 load shedding in the early hours of the morning – at 4.16am.
The utility had announced the implementation of stage 5 on Saturday, which was expected to end on Monday.
CEO of the Durban chamber, Palesa Phili, said they were deeply concerned about the implementation of stage 6 as it severely impacted the economy across crucial sectors, resulting in a loss of productivity, and leading to revenue losses and unplanned operational expenditure across industries and their value chains.
Phili said it further limits access to the internet, which was devastating in a connected world of e-commerce and the internet of things.
“We believe if the matter is not resolved it can prove detrimental to South Africa’s growth prospects and job security. The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry believes prolonged periods of stage 6 load shedding will impact South Africa’s GDP and investment profile negatively. Furthermore, we believe it will impact food production and food security. The agriculture value chain is dependent on energy to produce,” said Phili.
She said businesses required certainty from Eskom and government leaders to assist them to keep their operations up and running. She recommended that businesses consider alternate sources of energy to ensure minimum disruption.
“As organised businesses, we believe businesses need to develop contingency plans to ensure they are not affected by South Africa’s energy crisis. The risk of businesses shutting down remains high.
“We believe the impact will be detrimental to small businesses. These businesses do not have adequate options and measures in place to withstand the impact of load shedding. The reality is that many SMMEs simply cannot afford to source alternative energy solutions such as generators, inverters, or UPS (uninterruptible power supply) devices to mitigate the effects of load shedding,” said Phili.
The loss of productive time is crippling and places a significant negative financial burden on most small businesses in both the formal and informal sectors as they lose thousands of rand with each instance of load shedding, she said.
Meanwhile, the Pietermaritzburg and Midlands Chamber’s CEO, Melanie Veness, said stage 6 load shedding was destroying businesses and the economy, and could cause job losses.
She said it was extremely disruptive when load shedding happens every couple of hours while many businesses were still struggling to recover from the impact of Covid-19 and last year’s July riots.
“Industrialists, who employ large numbers of people, are horrendously impacted. It is devastating. You cannot ramp factories up and down every few hours. Working with the Msunduzi Municipality we have managed to successfully curtail Willowton in stages 1 and 2, but beyond that, it is a disaster. Some factories take eight hours to ramp up, so they may as well just close when there is stage 6 load shedding,” said Veness.
Veness said that the most difficult thing for industry in Pietermaritzburg was that it was embedded in the network and that it was difficult to try spare the industry the ravages of load shedding.
“Meanwhile, in other bigger centres with designated industrial areas, our industry’s competitors are spared the worst of the shedding as their municipalities protect them and secure the jobs of the many that they employ. Our companies are losing contracts as a result because we cannot deliver. We need to make a plan to help our industry, otherwise they will look to relocate in order to compete and survive.
“Honestly, we are trying to win a huge battle with our hands tied behind our backs. It’s unreasonable. Far more established economies are struggling to reboot post-Covid. How on earth can we expect to do that post-Covid and the July riots with a chronically disrupted power supply?” concluded Veness.
On Sunday morning, Eskom held a virtual media briefing outlining how the power utility intended to solve the load shedding crisis.
Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said they have requested that municipalities assess where they have non-critical loads that can be switched off, such as street lights, in the daytime.
Daily News