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Lusa - Business News - Sao Tome: Energy crisis because of lack of money to import fuel

Sao Tome, March 24,2023(Lusa)- The Sao Tome Water and Power Company (Emae) has acknowledged there has been an energy crisis for several weeks due to a lack of funds for importing diesel and some generator breakdowns.
At the end of a meeting with the prime minister and some members of the government, the director general of Emae, Hélio Lavres, said that the "energy crisis that the country is experiencing," currently "is worrying," causing constraints on business.
Hélio Lavres justified the reduction of electricity supply due to the breakdown of "generator groups that no longer respond to their real capacity, as well as a transversal problem to all of society that are the huge debts that companies and individuals have with Emae," limiting the company's financial capacity.
"This means that at the moment, the country is in a critical situation and puts at risk the import of diesel for the near future, but the government will do everything it can to help, from what we understand from the prime minister," said the director of Emae, adding that the company would also do its part.
At the end of last year, the finance minister, Genésio da Mata, said that Emae's debt to the National Fuel and Oil Company (Enco), which is majority-owned by Sonangol, totalled around €9.7 million.
Helio Lavres said that the company would make a greater appeal to its customers, specifically public and private institutions, to settle their debts so that Emae's, "financial situation improves and consequently the supply of electricity to the people improves".
Emae also foresees in the short term the "acquisition of a minimum package [of generators] to make the groups [of existing generators] work with some regularity", admitting, however, that this is a "more structural, more fundamental issue and the government will certainly find a situation in the medium term".
"What is needed is the maintenance and repair of the groups. We need parts that don't exist at the moment, we work with difficulties, and we resort a lot to scrap metal to recover the group. We are in a difficult situation, and the groups no longer manage to inject power into the grid," he explained.
"Right now, we are producing around 16 mega. Today we may be producing 16, and tomorrow we may have a significant drop as a result of the situation of the groups," he added.
Without pointing to a deadline for the normalisation of the electricity supply, the managing director of Emae said that the company has sought to "minimise this impact" until it finds a solution.
JYAF/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
Agency : LUSA Date : 2023-03-25 12:16:00
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