Business Unity South Africa expresses concern over power outages

More seriously, it has now eroded local and international confidence in the reliability of South Africa's electricity supply, and this situation inevitably reduces the country's global competitiveness as an investment destination, especially since it diminishes South Africa's competitive advantage as a low-cost electricity country.

In this regard, BUSA, notes with even greater concern, media reports on the request from Eskom to “shelve business projects until 2013'. This is particularly concerning given that South Africa is looking to attract local and foreign investment, improve the performance of the manufacturing sector and increase economic growth to address the underlying socio-economic challenges. In fact, major South African and international companies have already made major capital investment plans, the outcome of which would be job creation and economic growth.

The implications of the scenario recommended by Eskom will reduce business confidence; discourage new investment and capital expansion programmes negatively affecting growth. This is more disturbing given the predicted global economic slowdown for 2008!

”We are seeking an urgent meeting with Eskom and Government in order to determine the extent of the problem and to have a clear, transparent and unequivocal plan going forward” says Jerry Vilakazi, CEO of BUSA.

In this regard BUSA will make concrete proposals to government on how to alleviate the burden faced by business as a result of load shedding and on appropriate incentives to improve electricity efficiency in the short term.