State-owned electricity company Eletricidade de Moçambique (EDM) has lost about five billion meticais (74 million euros) this year due to power theft in the country, the chairman of the board of directors announced on Monday.
“We have registered, at alarming levels, the growing rate of energy theft, both by domestic customers and large customers,” said Marcelino Gildo, during an awards ceremony for journalists in a competition promoted by the company.
In addition to energy theft, EDM has lost around 41 million meticais (605,000 euros) this year as a result of 265 cases of vandalism of electrical infrastructure registered in the country.
Added to the losses from theft of power and vandalism of electrical infrastructure registered in the last four years, the institution “lost the opportunity to supply power” to over 500,000 new customers, said Marcelino Gildo.
According to EDM, the situation is one of the company’s “biggest challenges,” as it “begins to compromise the achievement of the goal of universal access to energy for all Mozambicans by 2030.”