MOKOPANE – ONE of the most pressing challenges Mokopane is facing is the impact load shedding has on businesses in the community.
Bosveld spoke to a few companies in different industries varying from the hospitality industry to financial institutes and it was clear that load shedding has an enormous influence on their financial position.
Pierre Schalkwyk, manager of the Park Hotel, said, “It is truly an inconvenience even though we have generators the cost of diesel is extremely high and only the lights in the rooms are working when the generators are on. Our guests are thus not able to experience the various luxuries of our hotel.”
Dawid Janse van Rensburg, manager at Ocean Basket in Mokopane, said, “We are greatly impacted by load shedding as we do not have a generator as of yet and have to close whenever there is load shedding resulting in the loss of profit.”
Rudolf van Wyk, co-owner of Potgietersrus pharmacy, also stated that the cost to keep a generator running is extremely high and load shedding has a negative impact on the software of the computers leading to additional costs.
A well-known business owner stated that Mokopane turns into a ghost town as soon as the electricity goes off and that he can feel the negative effect on his business. Another business owner said that he spends a minimum of R8 000 a week on diesel for the running of generators during load shedding.
The smaller businesses can’t afford to buy a generator or to maintain the cost of diesel/petrol to keep a generator running so they are forced to close and lose a big portion of their income.
Most of the schools in town are using generators during load shedding.
Irene Masingi, spokesperson for the Mokopane police station, stated that during load shedding the number of burglaries increase.
The Mokopane police made an appeal to business owners that they should be extra careful with their security measures during load shedding, they asked that the shop assistants should lock up the store during load shedding rather than to sit inside and wait for the power to come back on as this makes them easy targets.
It is clear that load shedding has a drastic negative impact on the whole country and that it is going to continue for a while according to Eskom, but the community have to equip themselves so that the negative impact is lessened. There are a great variety of gadgets to lighten your load during load shedding, from generators, battery-backed globes; as soon as the lights go out, hit the button on your remote control and the batteries in these clever globes kick into action.
An uninterruptible power supply, or UPS, is useful for home offices that rely on computers, data centres and telecommunications equipment. Units range in size depending on how much you need to keep going when the power goes off.
