Sao Tome’s Water and Electricity Company (Emae) acknowledged that there was an energy crisis a few weeks ago due to a lack of funds to import diesel fuel and breakdowns of generators.
At the end of the meeting with the prime minister and some members of the government, Emae CEO Elio Lavres felt that “the energy crisis that the country is currently experiencing” is “worrisome”, creating restrictions for business.
Elio Lavr justified the reduction in electricity supply by faults in “groups of generators that no longer respond to their real capacity, as well as by a problem affecting society as a whole, namely the large debts of companies and individuals. towards Emae”, which determines the company’s financial capabilities.
“This means that at the moment the country is in a critical situation and jeopardizes the import of diesel fuel in the coming times. […]but the government will do everything to help, as far as we understand from the prime minister,” the director of Emae explained, assuming the company will also contribute.
At the end of last year, Sao Tome Finance Minister Genesio da Mata revealed that Emae owed about 9.7 million euros to Sonangol’s majority-owned National Fuel and Petroleum Company (Enco).
Elio Lavr said the company will increase its appeal to its customers, namely public and private institutions, to pay off debts so that “Emae’s financial situation will improve and therefore the supply of electricity to people will improve.”
Emae also foresees in the short term “acquisition of a minimum stake [de geradores] to make groups [de geradores existentes] function with some regularity”, acknowledging, however, that this is “a more structural, more fundamental issue, and the government will definitely find a situation in the medium term”.
“The groupset needs maintenance and repairs. We need parts that are not available at the moment, we work hard and many resort to scrap metal to restore the band. We are in a difficult situation and the groups can no longer show the performance of supplying electricity to the grid,” he explained.
“Now we are producing about 16 megabytes conditionally, because today we can produce 16, and tomorrow we will have a significant drop due to the situation in the groups,” he added.
Without setting a timeline for the normalization of power supply, Emae’s CEO assured that the company is trying to “minimize this impact” until a solution is found.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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