Arista Annandale, Democratic Alliance (DA) Councillor in the Mahikeng Local Municipality, said businesses in the Mahikeng Central Business District (CBD), including the Market Square, and businesses along Molopo Road and Hatchard Street, were left without electricity for four consecutive days. She explained that businesses trading in fresh produce had to make urgent alternative arrangements to prevent spoilage and waste. “One business had to hire a refrigerated truck at R1500 per hour. The financial loss due to spoiled produce for the four-day period is estimated at R550 000, while the trade losses for clothing and furniture stores are estimated at R600 000,” she added.

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Annandale further stated guesthouses, restaurants, and other small businesses had to burn diesel to run generators at an average cost of R5000 daily. “Small businesses are already running electricity backup generators during scheduled load-shedding at an additional cost, but once electricity blackouts last longer than two hours continuously per day – as they frequently do in Mahikeng's CBD and industrial sites – it becomes nearly impossible for this business to stay open.”

She alleged business owners struggled to obtain feedback and progress reports from Eskom on the day in question. “It was a struggle to contact key Eskom personnel for an explanation for the outage or to confirm the estimated restoration time.” The DA in the municipality has the intention to write to Eskom’s provincial management requesting an urgent meeting with them and the business sector in the CBD and industrial sites of Mahikeng, to resolve incessant extended power outages.

“The Mahikeng electricity crisis is threatening the viability of small businesses and if urgent action is not taken, the local economy will suffer irreparable damages resulting in job losses. Market Square employs more than 100 individuals and should the centre close, it will be a disaster for more than 100 families.”  

By the time of publishing, the Mahikeng Local Municipality had not replied to OFM News’ enquiry.

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