SA losing R4bn a day due to load shedding - BUSA
Business Unity SA (BUSA) wants government to implement immediate measures to limit the impact of load shedding on businesses.
BUSA says at least R4 billion is lost per day due to load shedding.
Power utility Eskom has been struggling to keep lights on in the past weeks, last weekend the country was placed on stage 6 load shedding.
Business Unity SA CEO Cas Coovadia wants government to urgently implement priority interventions.
"We recognise and appreciate that good progress has been made in implementing the energy plan announced by the president a few weeks ago, but the economic damage of the ongoing load shedding is severe and there must be an immediate intervention to deal with the crisis to manage load shedding better. Estimations are that the current loadshedding is costing SA around R4 billion a day."
Coovadia says government is still not taking the tough decisions on structural reforms to increase investment and stimulate growth.
He says the second quarter's 0.7% decline in the economy was mostly caused by the continued blackouts.
Some of the suggestions made by Busa to government include a short-term plan to urgently enable Eskom to purchase power from all available resources and to step up repairs to plants.
"Fill vacancies on the Eskom board, with relevant expertise urgently needed on the board. Be more granular and detailed on exactly what is causing the current spate of load shedding.
"Identify any critical shortage of technical expertise at Eskom and fill these. The private sector has consistently indicated its willingness to assist with this, through initiatives like TAMDEV, which has a database of broad experts and is already deploying these into parts of government."
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