Mozambique: Zambia owes US$70 million to EDM

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Mozambique: Zambia owes US$70 million to EDM

9:07 CAT | 28 Nov 2019

Zambia's Energy Minister Mathew Nkhuwa. [File photo: Lusaka Times]

Zambia’s Minister of Energy, Matthew Nkhuwa, has revealed that Mozambique’s publicly owned electricity company EDM is owed 70 million US dollars for energy supplied during 2015 and 2016.

Zambia has an energy deficit of around 900 megawatts which leads to power cuts lasting over 15 hours a day. The country is working with Mozambique and South Africa to import electricity to cover some of this deficit, despite having run up unpaid debts.

Cited in the Zambian newspaper “News Diggers”, Matthew Nkhuwa explained that the country is paying off the debt to Mozambique in monthly instalments. He added that since last week Zambia has been importing 300 megawatts of energy from the South African electricity company Eskom.

Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), the company that operates the Cahora Bassa dam in the western Mozambican province of Tete, announced in July a fixed sales contract to supply 50 megawatts to Zambia’s state power company.

The power that EDM once supplied to Zambia came from a floating power station in Nacala Bay in the northern province of Nampula. According to EDM, Zambia cancelled the contract to buy power from this station in 2018.

The floating power station (a ship coveted to its current use by a Turkish shipyard) also supplies electricity to the northern Mozambican provinces of Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado, supplementing the line from Cahora Bassa to the north.

Source: AIM