In South Africa, ‘load shedding’ takes a toll on small businesses

Cape Town, South Africa – In the five years since Corner Cafe opened its doors a few metres away from the South African Parliament building in Cape Town’s central business district, it has become a popular meeting place for politicians, researchers and other locals. Power cuts have now increased from only a couple of hours a day at the beginning to Eskom’s “Stage 6” – as much as half a day – in the last year, as it tries to protect the country’s grid from total collapse. “The government needs to ensure Eskom has all the resources and authority at hand to reduce load shedding.” ‘A dramatic response’ In December, embattled Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter – the 13th since 2008, when power cuts started – tendered his resignation from the utility. “One solution that can permanently deal with load shedding is to fix Eskom as soon as possible,” Kganki Matabane, BBC’s CEO, told Al Jazeera, saying other proposed solutions like utilising independent power producers and solar energy were like “putting a bandage on a broken arm”. We want the government to put all its efforts into fixing Eskom, we believe we can reduce the load shedding from Stage 6 to Stage 4.” A National Energy Crisis Committee set up last year by Ramaphosa is working on new legislation to “allow energy projects to proceed more quickly and enable coordinated and decisive action”.