Maputo, 9 May (AIM) – Mozambique’s publicly-owned electricity company, EDM, in 2023 recorded a positive net result of over 4.8 billion meticais (about 75 million US dollars at the current exchange rate).
According to an EDM statement, this is the third successive year in which EDM has recorded positive net results.
This performance was approved at an EDM Ordinary General Meeting, held last Monday, which also appreciated the increase in the company’s turnover by 14 percent, from 46.83 million meticais in 2022 to 53.17 billion in 2023.
In the same period, the level of total energy losses, mainly due to clandestine connections, fell by two percentage points, from 28 per cent in 2022 to 26 per cent in 2023.
“This reduction, the sharpest in the last four years, has had a significant impact on the increase in the company’s revenue and responds to the challenge set by the government of continuous improvement in operational excellence. In turn, the expansion projects of the National Electricity Network (REN) and the mass connections ensured that a further 395,732 new consumers benefited from electricity for the first time, including the communities of eleven administrative post headquarters”, reads the document.
The note says that the number of EDM customers rose from 2,936,751 in 2022 to 3,208,749 in 2023, which was a growth of nine per cent.
According to EDM, these advances have contributed to a three percentage point increase in the Household Access Rate to electricity from the national grid, rising from 43 per cent in 2022 to 46 per cent in 2023.
“The results achieved last year show that, as we work to achieve our objectives, we are perfecting our operating model in a volatile and uncertain context, conditioned by macro-economic indicators and climate change, which cyclically jeopardize all our efforts and investments”, said EDM Chairperson, Marcelino Alberto, cited in the statement.
Despite the satisfactory results, EDM continues to record losses due to the vandalization of its electrical equipment and theft of electricity, which in 2023 cost the company over 5.8 billion meticais.
“These acts delay the fulfillment of our goals, especially universal access to electricity by 2030. That’s why we reiterate our call for community vigilance and the denunciation of these illicit practices”, Alberto said.
“On EDM’s side, we will remain implacable in the face of the involvement of our workers in these acts or any other form of corruption”, he said. There would be “zero tolerance” for such criminal activity.
During the meeting, the Institute for the Management of State Holdings (IGEPE), representing the sole shareholder in EDM, the Mozambican State, gave a positive assessment of the performance of EDM, considering the company to be an example of good management in the state business sector.
(AIM)
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