THE INTERMITTENT load shedding that South Africans have to contend with goes beyond just power-availability and power-security. From city to rural areas load shedding is an economic wrecking ball.
Across the country, individuals, families, businesses and communities have to navigate life without various other basic services due to power outages by local power producer Eskom, which can go on for days.
In rural areas, the lack of electricity hits communities much harder, some of which do not yet have a power supply. This is because these citizens may have recently built their homes, have problems with their meters or happen to have built a little bit far away from Eskom’s transformers and fall beyond what is called the “in-fills zone”.
Some people sit in darkness for months despite having undergone the red tape process to get connected.
Others end up resorting to the illegal connections, “izinyokanyoka”. Many parents have paid dearly when their children got electrocuted.
But those who continue in darkness also have to dig deep into their pockets to cook, warm their bodies and turn on the lights for their children to study, work or run their businesses from home, which seldom happens in wealthy urban communities.
Alongside the lack of electricity supply, rural areas are also at the mercy of the lack of service delivery. Taps can run dry for days, weeks and even months. When they inquire, they are often given unsatisfactory responses.
These people then elect to suffer in silence rather than have their intelligence insulted by incompetent officials and service-providers who are just in it for the money.
So too, do many parts of South Africa, which have roads deprived of maintenance for far too long.
Because of the lack of service delivery in some rural areas and municipalities, investors leave these areas despite their economic potential, such as witnessed with dairy group Clover closing down South Africa’s largest cheese factory in Lichtenburg, and chicken producer Astral’s ongoing water supply battles with the Lekwa municipality.
The much-needed investments are in jeopardy or have been taken elsewhere, leaving those who live in those areas with no prospects of employment in the near future.
South Africa has many schools in rural areas that are under-resourced or totally in bad shape. Children and staff are denied conditions that bring about the expected results and are therefore languishing at the bottom of every ranking. They are condemned to the bottom of any ladder that leads out of poverty to prosperity.
This is also the case with clinics, hospitals, police stations, social service centres and courts on whom the lives of these people largely depend. The facilities are understaffed, hardly have reliable internet connectivity and are generally disconnected from government service portals (offline).
These communities generally lack business or skills/career support centres that would enable the exploration of the economic fortunes of these places.
There are parts of this country where cellular network is poor and hopeless. Living in these areas has become most difficult.
Every passing hour, day, week or month without power forces individuals and businesses to use their emergency savings, withdraw investments or take up loans to survive those periods without these economic services.
South Africans celebrate in ways last seen when Zozibini Tunzi became Miss Universe when electricity returns after every bout of load shedding.
They do not just celebrate because of pride, but do so in hope that they can recover what they lost when they had no power.
They do so because they understand that South Africa is a developing country with an abundance of opportunities for growth. They want to champion this growth in their own communities. However, the unreliable availability of basic and economic services will diminish the reasons for the country’s citizens to celebrate.
If those who are entrusted with responsibility, resources and funds to enhance the economic services of the various parts of the country, do not desist from corruption, do not maintain or develop their infrastructure and do not build capacity for the future, citizens will be condemned to climbing losses.
Given Majola is a multimedia reporter at Business Report. He writes in his personal capacity.
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE