Photo by [BizNews]
Entrepreneur and founder of Township Entrepreneurs Alliance (TEA), Bulelani Balabala, said the organisation and some of its stakeholders are working on an “action plan” to support local businesses impacted by the ongoing electricity crisis.
“We won’t solve everyone’s problem, but we can start the conversation. Building on some solutions [and] supporting some of these businesses. Because small businesses [are] the backbone of our economy, and these are the ones who could actually drive jobs. It’s then very important that [we] sustain them.”
TEA is an organisation that assists small businesses and entrepreneurs in various townships nationwide. They have been operating for nearly nine years and have helped approximately 6500 entrepreneurs and 20 000 township high school students. The organisation provides and empowers individuals with workshops, enterprise development, mentorship, and skills development and gives entrepreneurs funding opportunities.
The Impact of Load-shedding on Small Businesses
According to an insights report compiled by Nedbank and TEA, some key findings were that over 60% of businesses stopped operations during load-shedding, and 66% had to cut jobs due to load-shedding.
Furthermore, load-shedding led to increased operating costs and a loss of revenue. Another report finding was the impact of load-shedding on the owner’s mental health and their lack of understanding and misinformation regarding alternative power solutions.
“We reached out to the entrepreneurs that we’ve worked with nationwide, just sort of to get an understanding. We see and hear the screams or the cries of small businesses, but we don’t really quantify what the actual impact is. In this particular case, this was an opportunity for us to quantify the impact at this particular moment. Then create some short document that even other policymakers or other [corporations could use] … [It] would be very clear in terms of what the problems are and how to actually go about solving some of these problems.”
The report focuses on the immediate impact of stage 6 load-shedding on small businesses. It found that the top four sectors that were forced to discard jobs due to load-shedding were food and beverages, agriculture, manufacturing and IT.
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Businesses Forced to Shut Their Doors
We can quickly look at alternative power supplies from the outside looking in. However, that is not an option for most working South Africans, including small business owners. Balabala said load-shedding affected businesses to the point where they had to shut their doors for good.
“Because of the cost of alternate power and the misinformation around what alternate power actually requires, one then would then be spending their money in a bucket that’s got holes in it, or you’ll just purely be left out completely.”
And as dire as the situation may seem, some entrepreneurs have shown resilience and innovation during this period of uncertainty. Balabala recalled incidents where businesses and business owners opted to help each other with power supply.
“[There is] the story of small businesses in one of the townships that decided to just chip in and buy a generator. And when load-shedding hits, they all sort of just clamour up and work from that one singular space.”
