As South Africa faces regular electricity load shedding across the country, President Thabo Mbeki came out and admitted that it is the governments fault. Eskom, the country’s power utility, told government several years ago to invest more into electricity generation as the demand for electricity was growing in a growing economy. But the government did not heed Eskom’s advice and today South Africa now faces severe electricity shortages.

It has been reported that the overall cost to date caused by the power shortages totals R2bn. Businesses on the country are suffering on a daily basis as every minute without electricity is leading to lost productivity. From a business point of view, if a business looses a couple of hours a day due to no electricity, the businesses profits are going to dwindle. Salaries still have to be paid regardless of the lost productivity and this is not good for any business if your profits are being affected.

South African’s today are very angry about the current situation. People want answers and they want to know the solutions Eskom have. Eskom have come out and published a load shedding schedule to warn people when there will be power cuts. At times, this schedule is not being followed by Eskom so a business can not really plan, which does not help at all.

If only plans had been made years ago, South Africa may not be in the position now. Hopefully, the government can now see what is going on and start to make plans for the next couple of years so that today’s current situation is avoided.