Small businesses and some residents in Mahikeng are bemoaning prolonged power outages that are negatively affecting their businesses.
The outages have also affected the supply of water in the area.
This is as the North West Central Business District (CBD) and surroundings including Reivera Park, Golview, and Danville areas have been without electricity since last Friday after Eskom’s substation caught fire.
Tshepiso Mosiane, who rents space in a hair salon, said she had to send clients away because she relies on electricity to use her equipment.
“This electricity is really killing our businesses. I’m an independent hairdresser and renting space in a hair salon. I can’t afford to buy a generator because my business survives on the number of clients I get.
“Now because of this power outage, I have been sending my clients away. I can’t wash their hair because I need hot water and a hair dryer. Now it’s month end, I don’t even have money to pay rent. While at home we don’t even have food,” Mosiane said.
Keikeditse Moabi, who works at a pub, said she doesn’t have income because her employer operates on the no-work-no-pay rule.
“Without electricity, now the alcohol is hot, the food is rotten in the freezers because they are not working and the customers are not coming. On the other hand, petrol is expensive, so the owner can’t afford to buy diesel for the generator for the freezers to operate 24 hours,” said Moabi.
A local resident, Leboy Leshomo said the town’s economy was in jeopardy because of a lack of capable leaders in the government.
“Small incidents like these just show us that we don’t have capable leadership in the country. The substation caught fire last Friday, it’s almost a week now that we have a whole capital city that is dark. A leadership that is more than capable would have planned ahead and implemented a Plan B right now, to avoid the current situation.
“So small incidents that happen in our country just expose the weak leaders that we have. Now the economy of the whole town is in jeopardy,” Leshomo pointed out.
Eskom’s provincial customer relations manager, Ezekiel Baruti, said they were attending to the power outages.
“The much-awaited mobile switch gear arrived at the Mmabatho main substation. The mobile switch gear will be used to replace the structure that was gutted in the fire on Friday. Eskom’s integrated teams have been busy since this morning setting up the mobile unit that we spoke about, and it is only after they have set up that they can start connecting and give us the estimated restoration time,” said Baruti.
