The new politically correct word which seems to have replaced the horrific ‘loadshedding’ is now ‘power outages’, which local residents have experienced a number of times now.
Whilst government is patting itself in the back, claiming that there has been no loadshedding for about six months, residents are still experiencing power blackouts, now being termed ‘power outages’. The recent experience of Laudium residents being in the dark for about four hours this past Tuesday (Sept 3), saw many businesses closing doors, as they were not prepared for the sudden power outages which lasted for about four hours. Whilst some businesses still had their generators, others had sold generators because of claims by government officials, of having made much progress in tackling loadshedding. The Laudium Sun took to the streets during the power outages this past Tuesday and spoke to many businesses about the blackouts. This is what some of them had to say…
An employee at Mochachos, in the Laudium CBD, 24-year-old Lesego Selala told the Laudium Sun, “We don’t know why there is no electricity in the area. We cannot cater for orders of our customers, at our shop because we have no electricity and we do not even know when it will return. Unfortunately we do not even have a generator anymore. I do not know if this blackout is a power outage or load reduction, but it is affecting us the same way as loadshedding. The Council should have informed us prior to cutting off the lights so that we could have been prepared. As an employee we are paid according to the hours worked and if we are not doing anything we won’t get paid. This load reduction or a power outage is affecting us badly as the electricity has gone off for hours. I hope the Council fixes this electricity problem quickly so that life can be normal again.”
Tsholofelelo Damane manager at Romans Pizza also in the Laudium CBD, told the Laudium Sun, “Our shop is using a generator to serve customers, but what is frustrating about this situation is that petrol is expensive and the generator is consuming a lot of petrol which is very costly for us. Besides, our ovens are too big to work through a generator. We don’t know why there is a blackout. It is wrong that we were not informed in time about the pending blackout so that we could have been better prepared. We were happy when load shedding ended but now we are suffering again because we don’t know what is the problem.”
Amir Hossain, manager at Bay Leaf Restaurant on Tangerine Street in the Laudium CBD said, “When we don’t have electricity we use a generator, but the generator is costing us a lot of money because our stoves consume a lot of gas when we are using a generator. The Council has to resolve this blackout urgently as it is affecting us badly. The profits which we made during the day are now being used to buy petrol for the generator.”
An employee at Debonair’s Pizza in the CBD, Mitta Tsoake told the Laudium Sun, “We had to tell our customers that we can’t serve them because we don’t have electricity for hours. Our ovens are too big to work through a small generator and our business has been affected badly due to the power outage at the shop. We are losing a lot of money as we don’t have electricity and we can’t make pizzas without electricity. I am sitting for hours doing nothing as my job as a chef is to make pizzas for our customers and if I am doing nothing, this really frustrates me.”
