Power crisis bad for business in Palapye

Thalefang Charles | Friday March 21, 2014 15:28

 

“We are also affected. We thought you in the city are better off. They just cut and do not even notify us about the power cuts.We run a sensitive service here of keeping corpses and we have to take care of them by making sure that the mortuary refrigeration is always working.  We have bought a backup generator and now we are battling with high diesel costs.  My children were returned from school because of power and this will adversely affect their academic work. All we hear from some of the workers who live in Palapye is that now the Germans have taken over from the Chinese.” – Keitumetse Bome from Modiba Funerals

 

“We have 10 workers here and loadshedding has affected our work schedule as we are now forced to work at irregular hours, sometimes at night.  We have had a lot of damages. We lost a lot of revenue due to these loaves that we had to throw away because power cuts off while still baking. We are also concerned about people’s safety as we end up not selling very good quality loaves. I have heard that the problem is in South Africa where the coal is said to be wet and cannot be fired to produce power. Morupule B I hear is not ready as there are blasts.” – Jonas Benjamin from CK Bakery

“Here our business is solely based on the availability of power. We sell prepaid electricity and do secretarial service like photocopying, laminating and printing so when the power is off we don’t make any revenue. We do not have a backup generator.  The complex management said the back-up is expensive.  I would like to tell whoever is responsible to find quick solutions to this problem because this is really affecting our livelihoods.” – Boipelo Gofamodimo from Photocopying & Laminating Shop