In a perfect win-win scenario, small-scale farmers in and around East London will soon have a regular outlet for their seasonal, home-grown, harvested fruit and vegetables. The Border Kei Chamber of Business’s (BKCOB) Agricultural Committee, in conjunction with the Spargs Group, will be running the East London Organic Food Market (ELOFM), said Galit Cohen, who chairs the committee and also heads the NPO, Ripples of Change (RIP).
Four weeks ago a 100-strong contingent of business people, mainly Border-Kei Chamber of Business members, met BCMM to strategise ways to soften the impact of load-shedding, with an agreement to reconvene in a month, as they did last week.
Spokespersons for East London’s business community, asked for their opinions on the budget, said they were delighted that Enoch Godongwana had hammered Eskom and load-shedding as the number one cause of destroying SA’s chance of recovery, and quietly applauded some of his solutions. But one of the more vocal of the business people, who did not want to be named, asked a simple question.
Local and multinational companies operating in East London are so worried about the devastating impact of load-shedding in their operations that they are proposing a voluntary switching off of electricity for 24 hours per week instead of scheduled blackouts. The situation is so dire that businesses fear the outages might cause their collapse, leaving thousands without jobs.