#EskomCrisis – Young Business Owners Continue to Struggle As permanent Load Shedding Looms
While state power utility continues the battle of keeping lights on, entrepreneurs on the ground continue to bear the brunt.
Edendale-based author, businesswoman, and poultry farmer Ntobeko Mafu has had to permanently shut her doors last Friday due to the power cuts, announcing the sad news on social media.
Her business is unfortunately part of hundred of others that go under without being detected due to the impact that load-shedding has had on their day-to-day operations.
Announcing the sad news, parts of her twitter post read as thus: “Since last year, there has been bad load-shedding in our area that goes on for days on end at times…just as thought electricity was our main problem we had a water shortage that last over a week. It (started) out slowly but has ultimately led to the death of all the chickens we had (readied) for sale as it has been scotching hot and we could not access water or electricity (sic).”
Mafu’s two-year-old business, Madame Clucks A lot, had accumulated just over 600 chickens and employed two full time workers and two parttime employees.
“The day-to-day operations have been affected in terms of feeding. The feeding processes are slowed down when the electricity is cut constantly because the chickens have to eat at a certain time. And they have to eat while there’s still sunlight, especially if they are still chicks. If they are a day old to four weeks old, it’s an absolute need for them to have light while they’re eating. So, it ends up stagnating their growth,” Mafu explains.
“When they don’t have the infrared lights on in the chicken house during the power cuts, which serves as a heat provider, the coop will lose its desired warmth. The chicken will end up getting frustrated and trampling on one another, which results in them killing one another,” she added.
Another affected farmer is Nomthandazo Ndlovu of Imdingi Trading Enterprise Ndlovu Nomthandazo Poultry Farming, who operates in Pietermaritzburg’s Etafuleni. Her two-year-old business is temporarily closed, with the 35-year-old expressing similar frustrations of potentially losing her budding business.
With laconic responses, she highlighted that the power cuts have led to her “losing customers” and that, “my chicks are dying every day because of no light.”
“I am fed up with what is happening in South Africa because no one in governance seems to care about us. We try to create our own sources of income because we can’t rely on getting employment. Now this. I have lost all hope,” she said.
Last week, the SA Poultry Association spoke about the culling of millions of chickens due to load shedding, stating: “It takes the industry back. The industry is such a big and important sector for the country and not only for that but for the security of food.”
On Sunday, Eskom board chairperson Mpho Makwana informed the nation of the power utility’s plans of making Stages 2 and 3 of load shedding a permanent fixture for the following 24 months.
“We want to ensure that we create some predictability by implementing some level of permanent stages between Stage 2 and 3 load shedding for the next two years in order to give sufficient space for maintenance,” he said.
“Shuffling from one stage to another within a short space of time is not good for my business in any context within our communities,” Makwana added concerning the ongoing electricity crisis in the country.