Close to 300 workers had to be at home and several businesses at Damodar City Labasa were closed as the complex was without electricity from Saturday to yesterday afternoon due to a fire at Extra Supermarket.
Complex Manager Claudi Hues confirms they are currently using generator sets as they continue working with Energy Fiji Limited to fully restore the supply.
EFL says there are no issues with power supply from their end for Damodar City.
They say they are ready to supply power once things are sorted at the customers’ end.
Meanwhile, Labasa Chamber of Commerce President Vinesh Dayal says while they appreciate every effort Damodar Group is making to restore power, this demands government agencies such as Department of Town and Country Planning, OHS and EFL in particular to demand every shopping mall in the country to have a redundant power source sufficient to power up all tenants and not just a selected few.
He says as far as he knows, majority of the shopping malls in the country do not have a redundant power supply or an alternative power source by way of a backup generator to power each and every tenants operations.
Dayal says to see more than 200 people home and businesses suffering losses daily is painful and should not be accepted.
He says whenever there is power outage in some malls around Suva tenants are made to suffer with limited to nil backup support and the same applies to water supply.
The President says food courts do not have water to wash or clean dishes when backup tanks by properties are unfairly dedicated to their own operations unsympathetic to the tenants business and their workers.
Dayal adds other properties must learn from the initiative Damodar Group is taking in Labasa and authorities must also learn from this and implement new compliance measures to avoid any adverse social and economic impact.
