No nothing: Tembisa residents complain there is no rubbish collection, no electricity and there are also no jobs (above and right) in their once-vibrant township. (Photos: Delwyn Verasamy, M&G)
Above all else, John Mnisi, a resident of Tembisa’s Elidinga section, is angry about how Eskom’s frequent blackouts have disrupted his children’s lives.
On Sunday, Eskom chairperson Mpho Makwana warned that South Africans would probably have to deal with stages two and three load-shedding for the next two years to allow the state-owned utility to undertake maintenance of its power generating units.
More recently, residents were hit with stage six rolling blackouts, which entail that targeted areas are without electricity for up to 10 hours a day.
Sitting with his friends at a local car wash, Mnisi is also worried about the effect of the rotational power cuts on the broader economy in general, but on areas like Tembisa in particular. Many residents here are already on the back foot financially, and cannot afford the extra costs that come with load-shedding.
“We have children who wake up at 4am to get ready for school and there is no electricity to prepare lunch for them, now you have to give them tuck shop money and the reality is that you cannot give a child money every day because you can’t have money every day,” Mnisi said.
Tembisa has long been known for its buzz, but life has seeped out of the streets and there is a sense of despondency among residents. Mnisi points towards a tavern where a cluster of people sit around, seemingly with nothing to do.
“Those people sitting there don’t sit there by choice, there are no jobs, and it does not help that factories are either shutting down or retrenching their staff because of the ills of load-shedding,” he says.
Sitting under a tree in his yard with his two nephews in Emoyeni section, Noah Mogosetse talks about the pain of watching his two daughters daily navigate the struggles of job-hunting without a reliable communication network.
Joburg City Power cutting electricity of defaulting business in Alexandra. (Photo by Gallo Images/Luba Lesolle)
“They just left the house complaining about the internet. Apparently when the lights go off, so does the network. They need the network to look for jobs and there is also the anxiety of them expecting calls that may not come through as a result of the network. Inzima le mpilo esiyiphilayo [the life we are living is very difficult],” Mogosetse says.
“My fridge and TV no longer work because of load-shedding. I now go to the opposite house to catch up on the news and when I buy groceries I have to ask neighbours to keep some stuff in the fridge for me so they don’t get spoiled.”
He lays the blame for the power crisis, and other economic ills bedevilling his community, squarely at the feet of the ANC government, and says things have deteriorated to such an extent that life under apartheid almost seems more palatable in comparison. “Those were difficult times, but the country was not in the shape it is in now.”
A local headmaster stresses not only about the effect of the frequent power cuts on his personal life, but also on the security of his school, which is guarded by a lone unarmed man overnight.
“On top of worrying about how load-shedding affects me and my family, I now have to take home the stress of whether the school will be in one piece when we return in the morning,” said the school head, who did not want to be named.
“We have computer labs, and other things that are vital for the education of our learners, so should thieves make their way into the school, what are the chances that our patrol guy will overcome them? It is a never-ending stress. We may never catch those thieves as our CCTV cameras don’t work when there is no electricity.”
In Tembisa’s Isithame section, Siya Mthethwa, a psychology student at the University of South Africa, sits at the local shoemaker/barber shop with his friend, Thabang Masalesa.
“We can’t study. Sometimes we miss classes and tests because of load-shedding,” says Mthethwa. “I want this to be my final year but with the rate of load-shedding I am not too sure.”
Crime in the area has spiked during the frequent pitch-black nights, Masalesa says, pointing at a nearby church.
“They recently shot a lady selling scones on that corner,” he says, then adds with another wave of his finger: “Down there, they stabbed someone. All this during load-shedding because it gets so dark.”
Mnisi says, “Load-shedding affects those who do not have money; open your eyes and look at the state of Tembisa.”
In the Emangweni area, Wendy Somdaka, the chief executive of Somdaka Funerals, one of Tembisa’s more successful businesses, talks about the difficulty of running a morgue, which needs to be kept cold, with Eskom’s power cuts. The company has had to invest in additional generators — and more fuel — to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply 24 hours a day.
“We buy 100 litres of diesel twice a week and when the transformer in our area explodes and we are out of electricity, we can buy 100 litres of diesel every day to keep the generator running, which is super expensive,” she says.
In Johannesburg’s sprawling Alexandra township, businesses are struggling to remain open and some have had to let employees go because of load-shedding, which recently escalated to stage six.
To add to households’ and businesses’ problems, Johannesburg’s municipal electricity supplier City Power has been on a revenue collection blitz, which has resulted in some customers being cut off for not paying their bills.
The managing director of Thathe restaurant, Nhlanhla Malisa, says his business is running at a loss because of the additional costs that come with staying open during extended power outages.
“Storing food is a serious problem because our fridges are constantly going on and off and then our stock gets ruined,” he said. “We had to cut restaurant staff due to business being slow and also having to cut costs. I really hope that our government will hear our cry as small business owners.”
People gather outside the Tembisa Customer Care Centre after protesters set it on fire after a night of riots caused by angry community members demanding better service delivery in Tembisa. (Guillem SARTORIO / AFP)
Another Alexandra resident, Melita Kekana, opened a salon in the township after losing her job because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But now she has had to close her small business and her workers have joined the nearly 33% of South Africa’s labour force that find themselves without jobs.
“I had employed more than 10 people, and with load-shedding getting worse, I had to let them go and close down. Now, 10 families and more have to suffer because of a situation that the government can fix. We are really being let down,” a dejected Kekana said.
Like many frustrated South Africans, she blames the ANC, which has governed the country since the first democratic elections in 1994.
“Citizens had better start believing that the power to change all of this is in their hands; we cannot keep on living like this. We have to vote the ANC out, as they have continuously failed to help us,” Kekana said.
Opposition parties are not letting the opportunity of piling pressure on the government pass.
Nineteen interest groups, including political parties, have filed a court challenge to force the state to mitigate the load-shedding crisis and to have it declared in breach of the Constitution for failing to ensure the sustained supply of electricity.
In Alexandra, the energy crisis is exacerbated by the fact that only 4% of businesses and residents pay for their electricity consumption, says City Power, which is trying to recover R363 million owed to the Alexandra Service Delivery Centre.
But the principal of St Martin’s pre-school, run by St Hubert’s Catholic Church, said it was “selfish” of City Power to be quick to cut off electricity supply to businesses when its technicians were often not readily available to resolve frequent power faults in the township.
“It has been six days now without electricity because of cable theft. We have called multiple times to City Power letting them know of our struggles and no one was there to assist,” said the principal, who did not want to be named.
“As paying customers, with a bill that is up to date, it is very disturbing having to deal with such incompetence.”
She said it had been difficult to register children for the new school year. “We have to manually register the children and that makes it hard for us to trace and place them correctly into their suitable classes.”
In Soweto, small business owners are buckling under the pressure of rolling blackouts. “Actually, it kills you,” said Elliot Mbatha, who owns MBS Cakes & Bread in Senaone. “A four-hour outage means that you can’t make any bread. The impact is very, very bad.”
His staff often use the blackouts, if they last for two hours, to mix ingredients for their cakes.
But enduring deeper cuts takes its toll. “Sometimes, it goes for four hours. I can’t even begin to describe the experience, it’s very bad. We’re a small business and at the same time, you’re losing money … we’re running at a loss,” Mbatha said.
His bakery employs four people. “We try our best to work around the schedule but with this schedule, when they suddenly jump from stage four, to stage six, that’s when the trouble comes. We’ve lost so many customers because they will go to the next guy who has a back-up generator.”
Mbatha cannot afford to buy a generator to use during power cuts. “We have two big ovens and need a big generator. Solar is very expensive — to use those ovens you need to buy I don’t know how many batteries. The best option is a generator but the diesel will be an issue as well.”
Power surges after the power returns are damaging his appliances.
“Every second week we have to buy new fuses for the ovens, because every time when the power comes back, it blows the fuse for the oven, it’s very tough. We need to sort out this energy crisis in South Africa as soon as possible,” he said.
At the Gogo Jane Laundry in Mofolo, business too, is drying up.
“This load-shedding is really affecting us a lot because people bring clothes but we can’t wash them, we can’t iron them so it’s becoming hard for us,” Xolani Sibanyoni said of the hardships his business faces.
“When a person brings clothes, we make sure we wash the same day. Now it takes two days. We are losing a lot of customers because, for now, they will rather go to people who are washing with their hands. This load-shedding is killing our machines because now, when the electricity comes back, it comes with more power and our machines get broken. It’s a disaster.”
Taxi driver Sibusiso Mthembu believes load-shedding has contributed to rising crime in the townships. “When it starts getting dark, we start fearing for our lives as drivers because there are no street lights and we are getting mugged,” he said.
In suburban South Africa residents — who have more financial resources than their fellow citizens in the townships — are arming themselves with the tools to ensure essentials such as wi-fi routers can keep running even during blackouts.
But after months of relentless load-shedding, they too are feeling the strain.
“I have an inverter which worked well when load-shedding was two hours at best,” said Mark Venter, a business owner in Johannesburg’s well-to-do Rivonia suburb.
“But now, with the four-hour stretches of load-shedding, it does not make it to four hours; the battery runs out. I work from home and so it’s a huge inconvenience for me.
I have to go work at a cafe most days.”
A customer at a grocery store in Rivonia said she was on the hunt for a gas stove.
When she and her husband bought their house a couple of years ago, they invested in an induction stove as an energy-efficient way of cooking. But they have not had much of a chance to use it because of load-shedding.
“Solar is the way to go, we have enough sun,” said another resident, Susan Adams, whose family is planning to install solar panels and take the house largely off the grid.
But even for wealthier South Africans, that is still a costly venture. According to Handymanhomes, the size of a house, as well as electricity consumption, dictates what size solar system to install.
If a household’s electricity expenditure is below R1 300, the approximate cost of a solar system would be about R63 000. For electricity expenditure of between R2 200 and R5 000, a solar system costing about R110 000 is required.
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