LIMPOPO – Businesses everywhere face ample challenges as the country’s energy crisis deepens.

One industry that in particular faces serious problems when it comes to load-shedding are mortuaries.

To ensure the preservation of human remains, cold storage facilities at mortuaries need to be kept at temperatures below five degrees Celsius.

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Doing so in times of load-shedding, however, becomes a challenge with the continuing power outages, especially when stage six load-shedding is implemented and electricity is switched off for four hours at a time in some areas.

Sam Ntshauba, the chairperson of the South African Funeral Practitioners Association, said funeral parlour owners are hit hard.

“Government still does not seem to have a solution for the energy crisis. They still have not come up with ways to help businesses deal with these costs, particularly funeral parlours,” he said.

According to Ntshauba, bodies cannot be kept at mortuaries for long, even under normal circumstances.

With the crisis around keeping fridges cold during load-shedding, he is making an urgent appeal to the public to arrange for their loved ones to be buried shortly after death – as it was done during Covid-19, to avoid burying a body when it starts decomposing.

“We did not budget for load-shedding, and to make use of alternative storage ways affects pricing.”

Humbulani Bvumbi, the managing director of Thabelo Funerals, said although load-shedding brings its challenges, they try to keep bodies cold for as long as possible.

“As undertakers, we are forced to have generators. This, however, consumes a lot of fuel, which costs a fortune, and, in the end, we hardly see any profit. I spend a lot of money each day to run the generator during load-shedding. I have also had to change some of my equipment twice as it broke with the power being switched on and off,” said Bvumbi.

Kaizer Marindi, the the owner of Marindi Funerals, said not all funeral parlours can afford generators, especially the smaller ones.

“We understand that a funeral parlour needs to have a generator, as we cannot function without it, but where do emerging funeral parlours generate the capital from to put in a generator?” he asked.