THREE of South Africa's top four lenders have warned that hours of daily power cuts could hurt small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are considered the backbone of the nation's economy. SMEs in Africa's most industrialised nation represent more than 98% of its businesses and employ more than half of its workforce, according to a McKinsey study. Issues affecting this sector could in turn further hurt the gross domestic product, which shrank a greater-than-expected 1.3% in the final three months of last year. State-utility Eskom implements daily power cuts, called load-shedding, in stages with Stage 1 being the lowest. At…