As everyone can see the problem in the country, Eskom also acknowledges that they are facing the problem of the company’s lifetime. Eskom is claiming to have financial issues and also facing a cable theft issue. This has huge impact to Citizens and businesses, especially small up-coming businesses.
However, it is the citizen who are suffering the consequences, South African citizens are forced to live under up to 12 hours without electricity everyday of their lives. This is causing a huge distress as people are facing home appliances damages and even worse these damages are causing house burns. Some residents say, they are forced to throw away their food because fridges could not preserve them as they were not working. This issue is directly and indirectly costing South Africans a lot of money, yet some are losing their jobs.
Appliances can react very badly after the hard forced on and off connection of power, some even explode and cause fire. Some houses are burnt to the ground due to unsafe way residents are forced to use when Eskom cuts its power off. Such ways include candles, which are not safe at all. According to IOL, the house burnt to ground after the owner Mr Martin Van Rooyen was forced to use candle as there was no electricity in his neighbourhood.
However, some are taking this issue as an advantage, it was reported that some criminals are using this as an opportunity to steal connection cables, knowing that there is not power to be afraid of. Recently, ewn has reported that about 2 million worth of cables were stolen and transported to other countries.
Everyone knows that South African economy is not doing very well, especially after issues like unemployment, corruption, and companies that are not doing well due to issues like, Covid-19. But it was proven that Eskom is making the issue worse, most of South African based business are suffering, especially small businesses that cannot afford reliable back up plan for when the power has been cut. Small restaurants and poultry are among industries that are heavily affected by Load Shedding.
One farmer has posted a video clip showing about 5000 chickens dead due to power cut in his shed. The total cost to him was not disclosed but if you check, chickens are selling at about R70 each. meaning this farmer has lost approximately R350 000. That is a huge amount of money, especially to small, up-coming farmers. This cost is not only affecting him, but his employees and their families as well, not mentioning the whole South African poultry industry that is mostly dependent on other countries.
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