South Africa Blackouts Snarl Traffic, Shut Cartier, Vex Mbeki
By Antony
Sguazzin
Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Workers at Johannesburg's Tre Gatti
Cucina restaurant spent peak business hours last week wiping down tables and folding napkins by candlelight, their kitchen idled by South Africa's worst-ever blackouts.
With the country's power monopoly, Eskom Holdings Ltd., predicting shortages until at least 2013, the six waiters and kitchen workers may soon be out of work.
``If it continues like this we will have to sell,'' said Dee Kroon, who opened the Italian restaurant in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Craighall Park in 2005. ``Who is going to buy a business if there are power cuts all the time?''
Africa's largest economy is being threatened as a lack of new power plants and increased energy demand have conspired to reduce power to shops and cafes as well as the mines and smelters of companies such as BHP Billiton Ltd. and Anglo American Plc.
The shutdowns
mean entire regions of South Africa are dark for up to five hours a day, triggering traffic jams as street lights shut down. ``Its having a very serious effect on business,'' said Bill Lacey, an economic consultant at the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The group has called for lower duties on imports of generators for small businesses....
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