It's the height of tourist season in Cape Town right now. The weather is great (most of the time); parliament is buzzing - particularly after that budget speech; there's all number of events planned to take advantage of the season; there's a tall sailing ship in the harbour along with a couple of cruise liners; not to mention the annual Design Indaba with all its international guests this week - it's extremely difficult to find accommodation in the city right now - yet for most of Sunday and part of Monday, the entire Western Cape has once again been without power or intermittent power supply for two days... expected to continue to Wednesday! And let's not even mention the excessive power cuts that Jo'burg's outdated electricity grid has subjected us to for the past year. The blame game is being played out nicely in the mainstream media, with 'angry' politicians sounding off at the electricity parastatal, particularly in the light (and I say this with extreme irony having endured an 18 hour long power cut this weekend) of the local elections next week. It makes for good copy... but what kind of message does this send to our foreign guests and business people? That we are a third world country? That we cannot cope with providing a consistent service to our own population? Business is criticizing the public holiday on 1 March as excessive - but what are these continued electricity cuts in our two biggest cities, Johannesburg and Cape Town, doing to our economy? Have an 'illuminating' week! Louise Marsland, Editor, editor@bizcommunity.com