Busa says GDP growth has been ‘rolled back’ by recent bouts of load-shedding

Business Unity South Africa (Busa) has warned that, despite optimism generated by recent gross domestic product (GDP) numbers, this growth “has been rolled back” by the load-shedding implemented by State-owned power utility Eskom in the past two weeks, which escalated to Stage 4 on June 9. First-quarter GDP growth for this year grew by 1.1% compared with the last quarter of 2020, but the recent bouts of load-shedding has had a devastating impact on businesses in all sectors of the economy and is introducing hardship for citizens.