Chamber urges Bay businesses to spare power

The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber has called on all industry players to use electricity sparingly.

Chamber CEO Nomkhita Mona said this was to help the municipality to meet Eskom’s load-shedding requirement.

She said: “Depending on the co-operation and level of participation in this voluntary shedding, this could go a long way towards reducing the devastating effects of stage 6 load-shedding to the economy of the Nelson Mandela Bay region.”

She added: “Businesses and communities are advised to stay alert and keep checking all communication channels of the municipality and the business chamber for regular updates on the matter.”

“The business chamber views this matter in a very serious light as it is nothing less than a crisis situation. This economy can ill afford to lose any jobs as the region has the highest unemployment rate of all the metros nationwide.

“We hope the region can avert the crisis at least until the holiday shutdown this Friday. This shutdown period would free up about much needed load into the system thus alleviating the pressure.”

She added that the chamber recognised that the electricity supply issues could remain a long term challenge.

She said: “We would, therefore, collectively need to come up with long term solutions and the business chamber will continue to facilitate these on an ongoing basis.”