The World Bank (WB) has expressed interest in helping to solve the “serious problems” of São Tomé and Príncipe’s Empresa de Água e Electricidade (Emae), making it economically viable to attract the private sector to invest in renewable energy.
The institution’s regional director for São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Albert Zeufack, made it known that Emae has a debt that represents 40% of São Tomé’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“This means that this debt represents not only a blockage at the level of the real sector (electricity production) but also a serious problem at the level of Public Finance. Therefore, it is important that we sit down at a certain moment and see how to solve this problem,” said Zeufack.
According to the WB official, from their experience, this is not a fundamental problem but rather a problem of political will and reforms.
Last week, the São Tomense government announced that it wants to stop the debt of about €300 million with Angola, under a new economic cooperation agreement signed with representatives of the Angolan government, in the São Tomense capital.
According to the São Tomense Finance Minister, during the talks for the agreement, the parties acknowledged the bilateral debt between the two states, as well as the fuel debt that Emae has with the National Fuel and Oil Company (Enco), of which the Angolan state is the biggest shareholder, via Sonangol.
The World Bank regional director said that “Emae has serious problems at the management level, at the level of operational losses, of technical losses”, which the institution’s specialists in the energy sector have identified and will be able to work with the Government to solve.
For Albert Zeufack, the transformation of the energy sector in São Tomé will have to go through the development of renewable energies to have more hydroelectric or solar production, as well as the “reform of Emae at the level of its management, its limitation, the technical and operational losses.
With information from Forbes