{"id":299724,"date":"2019-02-15T07:21:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T05:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=299724"},"modified":"2019-02-15T07:21:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T05:21:00","slug":"how-eskom-is-crippling-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/299724\/how-eskom-is-crippling-small-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"How Eskom is crippling small businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Businesses in South Africa are struggling to operate amid rolling blackouts that affect their operations for as many as five hours at a time.<\/p>\n

The power cuts by cash-strapped utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which provides about 90 percent of the country\u2019s electricity, are a \u201chugely damaging reality check,\u201d president Cyril Ramaphosa said Thursday amid a fifth straight day of blackouts.<\/p>\n

The reductions may cost the country as much as R5 billion ($353 million) a day, according to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, a civil-society group. Bloomberg visited some businesses during blackouts to see how they cope with the situation.<\/p>\n

Suzanne van Weely is throwing out as many as 15 loaves of unbaked bread daily – about a 10th what she produces at her Supercalifragilistic bakery and coffee shop in Linden, Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t get the things they want and they walk out,\u201d van Weely said. With fridges shut down, cheesecakes, mousses and trays of tiramisu \u201care going off. It\u2019s all stuff that costs money to make,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Across the road, trading at her father Ronald\u2019s store, Magnificent Paints and Hardware, is at a standstill. When the power goes out his regular customers – local contractors – stop working and so do his orders and sales.<\/p>\n

Three of his six delivery trucks are parked in the yard while he sits in a back office lit only by a rechargeable lamp and the light from his smartphone screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe power outages are way too long,\u201d he said. \u201cFour and half hours is way too long – most people work for eight hours so more than 50% of the workday is lost. They should make it two hours then we can at least get some business done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around the corner, the screens on electronic fuel pumps at the Linden Garage gas station are blank. While owner Marco Dalle Ave jokes that his old mechanical pumps were seemingly more advanced and better suited to rolling blackouts, he is worried about turnover and having to pay staff. \u201cIf you can\u2019t operate, you can\u2019t make money,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

According to him, a generator would cost more than R100,000-which he can\u2019t afford.<\/p>\n

Francois Labuschagne, who also can\u2019t afford a generator, said electricity shortages are killing business at Print2Go, his printing shop. \u201cIt is like the economy has just been cut in half – half of the economy is operating half of the day and it is not like there is plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a business owner, this is a ridiculous situation, we\u2019ve got staff to pay – if the business goes under then staff lose their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Rembrandt butchery has a back-up generator, power cuts still have a devastating effect, said Marco Huisamen, its manager.<\/p>\n

With gasoline prices close to record levels, running the generator is expensive and doesn\u2019t provide nearly enough energy to keep all the lights on, fridges cold and meat band saws working all at once.<\/p>\n

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Read: R100 billion Eskom debt transfer could happen: analyst<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Businesses in South Africa are struggling to operate amid rolling blackouts that affect their operations for as many as five hours at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":299726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[1164,26],"class_list":["post-299724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-eskom","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299728,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299724\/revisions\/299728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}