Cut off in more ways than one

Kobus Smith, a business owner in Edelweiss, says his power gets cut everyday for at least three hours.

“I understand that load shedding happens everywhere, and that every town has its turn, but people who live in the suburbs around me say they never get load shedding,” he says.

Smith says that load shedding is barely implemented in areas such as Nuffield and some parts of Geduld, but the area in which his business is located, is affected every day.

“It’s costing me more than R1 000 a day just to keep the generators going,” he says.

Smith has phoned Ekurhuleni multiple times to complain, but receives unsatisfying responses.

“They keep telling me they don’t know why some areas get load shedding daily and other areas don’t, and just refer me to Eskom,” he says.

When Smith phoned Eskom and started explaining his problem, he says they cut the conversation short by putting the phone down.

“This happened every time I phoned them,” he says.

He adds that his profit is only going into the diesel for the generators.

“If they could keep to their schedules and distribute load shedding fairly, one would know how to plan,” says Smith.”

Eskom’s media desk says in a statement that it is not their culture to treat customers in this manner.

The statement reads: “We would like to convey our sincere apologies to the customer for the bad experience he had when he contacted Eskom.”

The power utility adds that they do load shedding as a last resort to prevent a system collapse as a result of demand exceeding supply.