Durban — Numerous industrial businesses in Hammarsdale ground to a halt without electricity for six days.
This led to about 14 factories stopping production while more than 200 employees were put on short time, which has affected their salaries.
The cables were reported stolen during load shedding on Monday last week, leaving the businesses without electricity for nearly a week.
Michael D’Ercole, the manager at Coveway Industrial Park which houses 10 businesses with about 250 employees, said electricity was only restored by Eskom on Sunday.
D’Ercole said none of these companies could operate or produce He said they had experienced load shedding three times a day, making a total of six hours a day.
“The load shedding has made the area prone to cable theft. This has caused problems for our tenants who now get little time to produce, or nothing at all. This also affects their employees as they fall short and cannot be paid. These businesses have different machinery all powered by electricity,” said D’Ercole.
Due to the power required by these manufacturers, D’Ercole said they were spending about R1 million on electricity every month. Businesses within the complex were losing about R500 000 per week, he said.
Due to the outages, some of these companies have resorted to investing in generators.
“Most of the companies require more electricity using generators, which cost some companies a minimum of R600 an hour, running eight hours for six days.
“In this way, we are also at threat of losing our tenants. We have two warehouses that have no tenants due to Eskom, and we could now lose more of due to load shedding,” said D’Ercole.
Kim Taylor, owner of G&O industry which deals with plastic injections moulding, said she might need to retrench more employees. Taylor took over the business a year ago and had to downsize employees from 18 to 15 due to load shedding. She said she was losing about R20 000 per day.
“Due to the floods, I had to pay my employees in advance. In Hammarsdale, our businesses were not fortunate like many who got assistance from the government. We had to start from scratchy,” said Taylor.
She said the load shedding was frustrating as most of her employees who lived in the area could not charge their phones, while others had to travel from Pietermaritzburg to only work approximately three hours.
She said that due to the little pay or no-work, no-pay policy some of her staff informed her that they had to take loans to send their children back to school.
Taylor said it was shocking that international companies near her business never experienced load shedding.
“With the possibility that load shedding will only be solved in two years, by then I would have lost my business and have probably closed down. I understand that the country is facing a crisis.
“I find it a built discriminatory that some companies who are not producing anything essential have never experience load shedding,” she said.
John White, the CEO of Hammarsdale Cato Ridge Development Association, said load shedding was the key factor holding businesses back.
He said that the most common issue raised by businesses also included the condition of the roads, frequency of water outages and general area maintenance.
“Load shedding is the most significant challenge to the significant job creation potential of the region. Load shedding in its current form is incredibly damaging for businesses in the region, and Eskom won’t engage in solutions. Many businesses take a long time to start up and run their processes, so it would be so much better to be off for even a day than to stop and start so frequently. Hundreds of jobs are on the line and many hundreds of people have been on short notice this week due to cable theft,” said White.
Daily News