Post-election conflict affects delivery of Malawi-Mozambique electrical interconnection works
Mozambique: Clients owe EDM over 100 million dollars
6:36 CAT | 30 Mar 2022
File photo: FM
he Mozambican state and both public and private businesses owe the national electricity company, EDM, over 100 million dollars in unpaid electricity bills, according to a report on the independent television station. STV.
EDM’s director for electrification and projects, Joaquim Ou-Chim, confirmed this alarming news on Tuesday during visit to EDM by the Plan and Budget Commission of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
But despite the debt, Ou-Chim painted a rosy picture of the company’s gains in 2021, in terms of new connections and increased capacity.
Antonio Nhassengo, EDM’s Director for Business Strategy and Performance said more new clients were connected last year than planned – 102.5 per cent of the target for new connections was met.
“2021 was an historic year for EDM”, he said. “For the first time, EDM installed 300,000 new connections in a year”. He added that the rate of coverage of the national electricity grid rose from 35 per cent of the population in 2020 to 39 per cent in 2021.
But the failure of clients to pay their bills had caused EDM losses of 6.3 billion meticais (98.4 million dollars, at the current exchange rate) last year. Ou-Chim said EDM understands that some of the debtor companies faced serious problems arising the financial crises of the past, plus the Covid-19 pandemic of the last two years.
“The most important thing is that we are negotiating with these companies, so that they can pay off their debts”, he added.
A consequence of the non-payment of electricity bills, plus the frequent theft of power through clandestine connections, and the theft of cables and other electrical equipment, is that EDM finds it impossible to pay its own suppliers on time.
Nonetheless EDM has managed to reduce its debt to suppliers from 400 million dollars in 2019 to 150 million now.
Source: AIM
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