Cape Town - Small businesses around Cape Town have become accustomed to load shedding and electricity interruptions as Stage four was implemented yesterday without forewarning.
However, many business owners said its impact on business functioning continued to be an annoyance.
Hanover Park-based Fahiem Andrews, the owner of F.A.A Household Supplies, which supplies household chemicals and detergents to various shops and restaurants, said the sudden interruptions are negatively impacting their business manufacturing as they could not manufacture their detergents without electricity. This was also affecting clients.
“The other day, I was busy manufacturing a product when the power went off unexpectedly at 3pm. I could only start again at 6pm. I worked until 9pm that night,” Andrews said.
Madhu Lohmaier, a dispensing optician at Brian Roos Optometrist in Wynberg, said load shedding had quite an impact before they got an inverter, and although it was quite an expense it keeps their business going during this era of unanticipated and unannounced load shedding.
“We do feel that our clients stay away if there is load shedding because the building is dark, and they often think we are closed and not open. Small businesses like us pay a lot of money to have inverters installed to just keep the practice functioning and the phones and computers working.
“The smaller the business, I think the bigger they will be impacted by these electricity disruptions because a lot of them just can’t afford an inverter or to make provisions to service their customer,” Lohmaier said.
Manager of Coats for Africa in Wynberg, Claudelle Scott, said they sell second-hand and new clothing, but they were negatively impacted whenever load shedding took place as they lost business since a lot of customers were not fond of shopping in the dark.
Business owner Mark Adams said he used to own a service station in Sea Point that was heavily impacted during load shedding and eventually he had to buy a generator to keep some of the pumps running.
“I think that by now, where possible, businesses should probably have made an alternative plan in terms of a generator or converting to gas power. I think it’s been fairly clear that we are going to be having load shedding for years to come,” said Adams.
It was not all doom and gloom, though. Copy Quick – a photocopy and print store – owner Randall Scheepers said load shedding actually gave him a reprieve as he was the only worker in the store and did not have to worry about customers visiting competing stores as they were all closed during those two hours of load shedding.
kristin.engel@inl.co.za