Small businesses to count the costs after power outage
Speaking to The Addie, du Toit says small businesses will be hardest hit by the power outages as they don't have the resources for alternative sources of energy.
The effects of the power outage caused by the fire at the substation in New Era three weeks ago will be felt for months to come.
This is according to Eastern Gauteng Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EGCCI) president Mike du Toit.
Speaking to The Addie, du Toit says small businesses will be hardest hit by the power outages as they don’t have the resources for alternative sources of energy.
Additionally, those small businesses will find it harder to retain their customers and their very survival is at risk.
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“The damage caused by the outage has been huge and runs into the millions.
“Restoring power to industries has been an extremely complicated process which needed to be done section by section.
“The transformer that we have now is working at close to full capacity,” says du Toit.
Permanent restoration of the substation will take months, says the president.
Going forward, du Toit says as the chamber, they have some hard questions for the metro to answer.
Namely, why the reported existing damage to the substation was ignored and nothing was done about the substation.
“This is the biggest crisis Springs has faced since the strike of 1922.
“There needs to be a thorough investigation to ensure that something like this never happens again.
“As the chamber, we are also very concerned about the state of other substations in Springs and we want to send in our own engineers to inspect them,” says du Toit.
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The fire, he says, has galvanised the chamber to demand full transparency from council and better service delivery.
The enforcement of by-laws is also something the chamber would like to see more of.
“Communication between industry and council has always been a problem but there needs to be more co-operation
“Industry has skill that metro could utilise,” says du Toit.
As of last Wednesday, there were still a few businesses whose power had not been restored yet.
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