Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Bulawayo are struggling to stay afloat owing to the crippling power cuts currently being experienced across the country.
The country has been experiencing power cuts which have been attributed to the breakdown of generating units at the Hwange power station.
While the government is celebrating the synchronisation of the 300MW Hwange Unit 7 into the national grid, the country is still going for long hours without power.
For Mlamuli Moyo of Woodies Shack, a furniture-making company, the power cuts has greatly affected their business and set them on a collision course with their clientele.
Moyo said apart from the load shedding, there was a fault on the powerline supplying them and that has resulted in some clients losing patience and demanding their money back.
“We are in the furniture making business and mostly we deal with teak, which uses heavy machinery and when there is no power, we cannot operate. Alternative sources would have to be bigger generators which we, as a small business, cannot afford. As it is we have gone for a month and some weeks without electricity,” Moyo said.
Another carpenter, Harold Kutsanzira, who operates from Mzilikazi, said the consistent power cuts were affecting their revenue hence they were now running losses.
“We have bills to pay to keep our workspace running and whether we make a profit or loss we have to pay those bills. We have water bills, we need to pay salaries of people who work here and meeting all those financial targets without business is difficult,” Kutsanzira said.
“Of course, clients will come and pay some percentage of the charged amount but then they until they have their products, they don’t pay the balance. Some get impatient and come back to demand their money.”
Another businessperson in the same industry who identified himself as Dube said it is difficult to run their business with the current power outages.
“It is very difficult to run a business under the current circumstances. We have staff that needs to be paid at the end of the day. Whether they worked or not is not their problem because the challenge is beyond them. We do not know when the situation is going to improve, even the ZESA people know the effects of these power cuts on everyone’s business. We are just hoping that the situation will normalise soon,” Dube said.
For these entrepreneurs, load shedding is set to continue after Energy Minister Soda Zhemu told a post-Cabinet briefing, Wednesday, that the power cuts will continue despite an increase in power generation capacity at the Hwange Power Station.
