Government and Eskom need to end power outages in Alexandra – Chamber of Commerce

The chamber has described the latest episode of loadshedding as a coffin to bury local small businesses that were the hardest hit during the Covid-19 lockdown period, Alex News reports.

This was after Eskom recently introduced loadshedding as a result of broken power generators in a number of power stations.

Communications manager at Galxcoc Youth Desk Kagiso Leso said the power outages recently introduced by the utility came as another wave of economical setback for local business. “The load shedding has affected local business negatively.

“We were optimistic that after Covid-19 pandemic lockdown that forced many local businesses to close, we will have some relief but we were wrong. The recent load shedding came as another wave of economical setback, especially for our local businesses.”

Leso added that while small local businesses were losing income as a result of power outages, the big and well-established businesses were benefiting.

“The recent load shedding has not only negatively affected local businesses but it also gave an advantage to big corporate and well-established business because they have resources to use in case power outages strike. This means that big corporates continue to dominate the market and emerging businesses have no chance to grow. As a country, we must start considering other means of power generation like solar systems and nuclear power generation.”