ACTING Eskom CEO Brian Molefe has been making soothing noises about load-shedding, arguing that the lights are on 96% of the time for SA. Even if that were indeed reassurance, big industrial customers are not so lucky.In addition to load-shedding, Eskom has also been doing "load curtailment" regularly by asking large industrial and mining customers to cut their demand by up to 20% as an emergency measure.The strain is starting to show in a major way in the manufacturing sector, with the Kagiso purchasing managers index (PMI) falling to its lowest level in four years last month, and the business activity component of the index now back down at the level last seen in August 2009, when the economy was just recovering from the global recession.The PMI is based on a survey of manufacturers and tends to be a good predictor of the statistics on actual manufacturing activity. It’s likely that the manufacturing sector will have contracted in the first quarter, by about 3%, Investec’s Annabel...
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