EDM loses 120 million meticais due to illegal connections

Maputo, 31 Aug (AIM) – Mozambique’s publicly-owned electricity company, EDM, has recorded, in the first half of this year, a loss of 120 million meticais (1.8 million dollars, at the current exchange rate) as a result of illegal electricity connections.

According to the EDM client service director in the southern city of Matola, Samuel Guambe, cited in Thursday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Notícias”, there was a further loss of eight million meticais as result of the vandalizing of electricity infrastructures.

Due to this problem, he said, the company is always forced to reallocate funds to repair the losses, and this situation delays the implementation of projects and extension of the power grid.

The director explained that, in order to prevent the infrastructure vandalization and illegal electricity connections, the company is raising awareness in the communities to encourage people to denounce the people involved in these criminal activities.

In Maputo province alone, from January to July this year, 72 cases of vandalization of electrical equipment were recorded, which caused major losses to the company, making it difficult to achieve the goal of universal access to electricity by 2030.

Two weeks ago, EDM announced that it had recovered about four tonnes of stolen copper cables, valued at about 10 million meticais (about 157,000 dollars).

(AIM)

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