Cape Town - A fast-food business owner in the central Karoo has put his restaurant up for sale due to the crippling effects of load shedding, saying it was time to cut his losses.
The 41-year-old, whose name is being withheld for safety reasons at his request, bought the business in June 2022. He said it was time for him to sell it and focus on his other business ventures.
“Pizza and chicken are the main meals for the business, we need power to keep the business moving. Our oven works with electricity, if there is no electricity we can’t bake and we struggle to fry our chips.
In the evening when the power is off, it is completely dark and we have to close. It is time for me to count my losses.
The building has since been advertised online.
Chairperson of the George Business Chamber, Dr Willie Cilliers, said they were seeing similar cases in the Garden Route.
“The impact of load shedding, with the minimum wage increase has affected business owners. Interest rates are up, including increased cost of electricity. With all these factors together, we are experiencing a number of companies deciding to close down, and I think the numbers will increase heading into the winter months.
“Manufacturing and construction sectors are facing the biggest challenges. The sad part is that there will be job losses,” he said.
This comes after a recent report by Nedbank, which surveyed 200 businesses across South Africa, showing that small businesses in the township economy were struggling to stay afloat amid the power cuts.
The respondents highlighted that in the food and beverages, as well as manufacturing sectors, 83% of business owners reduced their staff count.
This, while 70% of business owners mentioned that they had to let go of some of their staff in IT.
On average, only 29% had no staff loses, while 5% of those businesses surveyed were permanently closed, according to the report.
Nedbank Managing Executive Solution Innovation, Dayalan Govender said: “Given that spaza shops contribute around 6% of South Africa’s GDP, employ 2.6 million people and represent an economy of around R600 million, the results are troubling and require a response from both the private and public sectors.”
“Nevertheless, despite having to cope with the added costs around things such as of fuel to run generators, it also revealed the resourcefulness and resilience of township micro-enterprises, even under the most extreme circumstances and with little outside support,” Balabala said.
Cape Times