S. Africa's businesses hit by power outages

JOHANNESBURG, March 18 (Xinhua) -- While President Cyril Ramaphosa has apologized for the rolling blackouts gripping South Africa, experts said small or emerging businesses would be left devastated by the ongoing power outages.

Towns and cities have been plunged into darkness since Saturday when state-owned power utility Eskom implemented load shedding set to last until Wednesday.

While bigger companies can operate businesses using generators during power outages, small businesses are the hardest hit.

"These businesses suffer the most because they can't produce during these power interruptions. They are being squeezed and will go out of business because they don't have the necessary backups," Jannie Rossouw, head of Wits Business and Economic Sciences School, said.

"As a result of this our economic growth might be low if this persists," he told Xinhua.

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said that he has spoken with Eskom to ensure large companies are not adversely impacted.

"The continuation of load shedding and in particular stage 4 is unacceptable and disruptive to the economy," Gordhan said.

Eskom has cited a shortage of capacity due to loss of additional capacity from Mozambique.

Transmission lines in Mozambique have been damaged by the ongoing tropical cyclone. Enditem