Fruit industry asks for lower duties on generators

REPRESENTATIVES
meeting to discuss
power cuts in the fruit
and wine industry, were
literally in the dark when
a 90-minute outage hit
the office of Western
Cape MEC, Cobus Dowrey.
Dr Malcolm Dodd,
cold chain specialist at
the Perishable Products
Export Control Board, told
FTW he was asked by
the fruit sector to attend
the session, along with
representatives of the
wine and grape industries,
organised agriculture and
Eskom.
“The message was
conveyed to Eskom
about the importance
of the fruit industry
to the Western Cape
economy in terms of
earnings and jobs and
that these outages were
unbelievably disruptive in
the middle of the picking
season, besides impacting
on the quality of the
product.”
Dodd says questions
revolved around the
possibility of Eskom
scheduling outages
between 4 am and
10 am, which would
impact less on fruit, and
whether it could assist
in easing the duties of
imported generators. A
response is awaited from
Eskom.