Mr Obed Mathoho, the owner of Bread World Bakery in Sibasa, says life is tough now with Eskom's current load-shedding schedules, which might force him to retrench some of his workers or cost him his business entirely.
"I'm seriously hit hard by Eskom's load shedding at my bakery. Baking bread takes a lot of time, and enough electricity is essential. The oven is heated before the first bread goes in, which takes about three hours to bake. With the current Stage 4 and 5 load-shedding schedules, we have a lot of waste, being forced to throw away uncooked bread," said Mathoho.
Mathoho cannot afford to purchase a generator, so his business relies solely on Eskom electricity. He said that, before load shedding, his bakery had made an average of R13 000 or more a day as people from villages across Vhembe had come to the busy Sibasa town to do their shopping and had always supported his business. "Now, with Eskom's load shedding, our production has been reduced to a turnover of only R3 000 a day. This is very bad for a businessman like myself, who has workers and rent to pay. It is a burden to us all," he said.
Mathoho says he could not charge more for his produce to make up for his loss as his customers would merely find another bakery with reasonable prices while his business perished.
"We are appealing to the government to think of helping us with a subsidy, as life is hard for us as business owners and even for the workers," Mathoho said.
One of the workers at Bread World Bakery, Mr Forget Mbedzi, said that losing his job at the bakery would be a nightmare for him and his family as he would no longer be able to provide for them.