olling power cuts are killing Faldema Abrahams’s sewing machines, and with it her business. Staying productive in the face of the near-daily blackouts which have been imposed to protect South Africa’s decrepit national grid from complete collapse has become a part of life. “When the electricity goes off, we can’t sew; when it comes back on, the surge can blow the motors,” Ms Abrahams, 45, said from the makeshift workshop she set up eight years ago at her home in Cape Town. The biggest worry for the mother of two young children is her staff, all of whom are women, and the sole family breadwinners from her poor neighbourhood of Bonteheuwel, in the Cape Flats townships.