Thando Makhubu was overjoyed when President Cyril Ramaphosa applauded him for using his R350 social relief of distress grant to start an ice cream business, during last year's state of the nation address (Sona).
But as Ramaphosa prepares to deliver another Sona, that excitement has melted.
Load-shedding is threatening to sink the 31-year-old's business, Soweto Creamery. Makhubu employs four people but fears for their jobs as the blackouts continue. He may even have to close.
The cost of fuel to run a backup generator has gobbled up his meagre profits. Makhubu used two months' grant payments to start his ice cream business from his mother’s RDP house in Jabulani, Soweto, in 2020.
He had hoped to cash in during the recent heatwave but load-shedding dashed that. He spent up to R1,050 on fuel in a month when “load-shedding got bad”.
“As a South African citizen, I must say that I am not happy about how the country is being run,” he said.
“Load-shedding is just one of many things that are not being properly managed. I don’t feel that private citizens are enjoying democracy. Politicians don’t have our needs at heart. They are not transparent and I honestly feel that politics come first rather than the people.”
Soweto Creamery is my main source of income followed by photography. As a new father I need every rand received to support my family
When load-shedding stages increased, his business hung by a thread.
“We'll run the business for as long as we can. We're counting on the customers to pull through. If load-shedding gets worse it’s going to be a real issue,” he said.
“I am truly honoured that the president mentioned me and Soweto Creamery, but since things are going from bad to worse I worry about where South Africa is headed. I already feel that we live in the most unequal nation in the world. Seems like our leaders are prioritising politics over the South African citizens.
“Soweto Creamery is my main source of income followed by photography. As a new father I need every rand received to support my family.
“At this point, we haven't retrenched anyone, but I have to sacrifice my salary, marketing and future growth plans to run the petrol-eating generator.”
Makhubu started his business after seeing “interestingly made” ice-creams on the internet.
“I got inspired and tried it out as an experiment. I understood that marketing is important. I formed relationships with influencers and celebrities to help grow the brand. Mohale Motaung posted us on his Instagram, which was approaching a million followers. He also posted us on Twitter and his Facebook account. After that, we just blew up. And we were able to invest in freezers and waffle makers,” he said. — Philani Nombembe
LAVINE CHINSAMY
Load-shedding forced KwaZulu-Natal businessman Lavine Chinsamy to close his restaurant, My Food Joint, and work as security detail at the Soccer World Cup in Qatar.
He reopened last week after five months closed.
“I took a chance and reopened last Friday but load-shedding has forced me to scale down my menu.
“I can’t keep all the dishes because my fridges have packed up. I have suffered damage to other equipment and from five staff members I am now sitting with only two.
“Crime has also picked up. People are stealing electricity cables here. Last week we had 28 hours of no power from Wednesday night until early Friday morning.”
“Tongaat has been hit very hard by the floods in April. A lot of people have lost their jobs. For me to increase the prices of my food ... is not fair.”
KALISTO MUTAKURA
Kalisto Mutakura from Diepsloot lost both his job and his side hustle because of load-shedding.
“Our employer at the quarry started reducing our days last year because he said he could not pay us for not working. We couldn’t work most of the time and this year he retrenched three of us. He said he’ll call us when things improve,” he said.
Mutakura did welding jobs on the side but can no longer do that because it is electricity intensive.
“Clients cancelled their orders when I could not deliver their things on time, leaving me with stock that I could not use, so I have opted to stop for the meantime until we have proper electricity,” he said.
“Please Mr President, we need the electricity. Sort out Eskom for us and stop this load-shedding.”
JACKSON SSEMAMBO
ackson Ssemambo, 49, is begging Ramaphosa to help rebuild his Greenhill GB Primary School after its tuck shop and a classroom were torched during community protests last week.
The low-fee private school receives no government subsidy and its R1,100 monthly fees pay salaries for 35 staff.
Between 200 and 300 school uniforms and more than 200 reams of paper and stationery stored in the tuck shop were destroyed, along with a recently bought R8,000 freezer. Protesters also stole 47 laptops used for computer classes.
The incidents on Monday and Tuesday have been blamed on angry shack dwellers who were evicted from land they were illegally occupying close to the school.
“Mr President, it has been our priority to start educating the children from a young age how to use a computer. These lessons have been so beneficial to them.
“The children will be deprived of laptops if we don’t get any financial assistance to replace those that were stolen.”
VANESSA MATLALA
Vanessa Matlala, 36, opened her fast-food business, Syochiller, in Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga in 2021.
The outlet, operating from a container, sells kotas, grilled chicken, ribs and steak and immediately became a hit.
But now she is struggling, forced to downscale, buy less stock and spend money buying gas equipment.
“We use electrical appliances so if there is no electricity that affects production ... and that is killing the business as we still need to pay our employees and pay rent,” she said.
“We urge the president and his cabinet to think hard about the impact this load-shedding is causing.
“As small businesses we are trying to help by creating jobs for the youth but load-shedding is making our lives a living hell.
“I've thought about giving up many times because we are losing appliances, stock gets rotten and it’s a struggle to pay employees and rent. I am spending my own personal money on a business that does not function during load-shedding.”
MORUTI MALINDI
Reverend Moruti Malindi from the Dutch Reformed Church in Phiritona, Free State, is despondent.
“Everybody in our community, from farms to factory workers, is suffering under load-shedding. I went to see one of our pensioners and took her a bag of maizemeal. When I arrived she was busy shredding pumpkin leaves which she mixes with a little bit of marogo to make a meal.
“How cold have we become if it is acceptable that senior citizens must survive on pumpkin leaves? I asked her why she was doing that and she said her food money was spent on coal for her coal stove, candles and paraffin.”
He also worries about how the farmworkers among his 116-strong congregation are suffering.
“They are dairy farmers. Milking time is supposed to be in the early morning and again late afternoon. Load-shedding is exactly in those time slots most days. Now they sometimes start milking as early as 2am. They know if the farm fails, they lose their livelihoods.”
TARRYN DU PLESSIS
Load-shedding forced Tarryn du Plessis to close her microgreen farm on KZN’s south coast and retrench her five workers.
“The income earned was critical to our financial stability especially because my husband is a contractor. We are now going to have to keep our heads above water as a single income family until such time as I can find alternative employment, which we all know is difficult in this country.
“This was meant to be a business that could grow and nourish our community at the same time and sadly it will not be that ... To end as a result of load-shedding is a bitter pill to swallow.
“Mr President, the situation in South Africa is dire.
“As South Africans, we are resilient, determined and great at making the most of what we have. But, the current level of load-shedding is killing small and large businesses alike. Many more people will lose their jobs”
PROF RUDO MATHIVHA
In an affidavit as part of a court challenge by 19 interest groups aiming to force the state to mitigate load-shedding, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital's critical care head, Prof Rudo Mathivha, says she has seen equipment damaged and destroyed by power surges, computer servers crashing, and how newborns in incubators that are unable to regulate their body temperatures when the power is cut can develop “spurious fevers”.
“Due to load-shedding medical procedures/operations that are not of an urgent nature get cancelled or postponed, which inevitably causes a pile-up and worsening of medical conditions.
“Already adverse patient outcomes and experiences are worsening both in hospital and at home as a direct result of national load-shedding.
“There have been several instances when patients succumb and the cause of death is described in many ways in circumstances where the cause of death may have been actually due to load-shedding.”
JOSEPH MOKOENA
Joseph “Comrades” Mokoena, 66, completed 12 Comrades Marathons between 1995 and 2010. He works in a Randvaal paint factory.
“My diet is a big problem and load-shedding caused me to land in hospital. I used to eat pap and tomato, pap and potato, or pap and marogo.
“The last few months the power has been off almost every evening when I arrived home. I started just eating bread out of desperation but the bread made my stomach hard and I landed in hospital.”
The dismal state of the country’s passenger trains makes his life even harder.
“The trains are a big problem. If I want to take the train to work from my area I have to catch it at 4am. That means I have to get up at 2am while some nights I work late. If I take the train home I will arrive at 10pm, if the train doesn’t break down.”
PIETER DU PLESSIS
Pieter du Plessis, owner of NutroChem in Bethal, Mpumalanga, has spent R7m supplying his own water and electricity.
“During the past two years the local municipality has failed to deliver services to residents and businesses and we had to resort to becoming self-reliant.
“We spent more than R4m to install solar energy and generators to ensure the continuance of business operations.
“Apart from the electricity we've been experiencing unstable water supply and lately had no supply of water from the municipality and this has a major impact on business.
“During rainy seasons we manage to harvest around 6-million litres of water, but this needs to be purified and we had to install a R3m system to cater for this.
“We need more water and will be building two dams. We also rely on our borehole and bringing water into our facility at a huge premium.” — Hendrik Hancke
HERMAN DU PREEZ
North West farmer Herman du Preez lost more than 40,000 broiler chickens due to power supply problems in Lichtenburg.
“Our transformer broke down in December due to lack of maintenance by Eskom and we were joined on another line, but there was a low voltage that damaged some of my pumps and motors,” he said.
Last month, more than 40,000 of his chickens died when an air conditioner in one of his buildings failed. Last Friday he put in a claim for losses to Eskom through his lawyers.
“Electricity is the driver of the economy. The president must see to it that competent people are appointed to work at Eskom. He must also stop the corruption at Eskom because we are in this mess because of corruption”
“To South Africans, I say strong to everyone. We must remain positive and hope that one day this storm will be over,” du Preez said. — Belinda Pheto
SBONGA AND BUSI SHELEMBE
Sbonga and Busi Shelembe’s furniture manufacturing business, BDesigns Furniture, was on the brink of closure until uMngeni municipality gave them a generator.
“We almost closed our doors because during stage 6 we would not work for four hours. We started falling behind with our orders and customers started to complain. We had to pay rent and salaries and it was becoming very difficult,” said Sbonga.
Unwilling to retrench five staff members, they applied to the municipality’s small business development programme for help.
“We are operating normally now. We plan to move to bigger premises. There is hope. We see the business is growing again.”
Shelembe’s message to Ramaphosa: “The unemployment rate is very high and government has been calling for people to start their small businesses. Load-shedding puts us in a situation where we are trying to address unemployment but it feels like government is not doing enough.” — Nivashni Nair
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