This Tuesday, 23 July, the government removed Marcelino Gildo Alberto from the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors of state-owned Mozambican Electricity (EDM), appointing Joaquim Henriques Ou-chim in his place.
According to the Lusa news agency, the decision was taken today (23) at an ordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers, according to a statement released this morning by that body, referring only to the dismissal of Marcelino Gildo Alberto and the appointment of the current executive director for the electrification area to lead the public company.
Lusa reported in May that EDM recorded profits in 2023, for the third consecutive year, but that they fell 7.5 per cent compared to 2022, to 4.8 billion meticals (76.4 million dollars).
According to data from EDM’s report and accounts, the company’s turnover grew by 14 per cent in 2023, to 53.1 billion meticals (843.8 million dollars), and the level of losses, resulting ‘mainly from energy theft’, fell by two percentage points, to 26 per cent of total production.
Marcelino Gildo Alberto
‘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 to improve operational excellence,’ reads EDM’s statement.
The state-owned electricity company’s profits, which had more than doubled in 2022 to 5.2 billion meticals (82.7 million dollars), fell in 2023.
‘The results achieved last year show that, as we work to achieve our goals, we are perfecting our operating model, in a volatile and uncertain context, conditioned by macroeconomic indicators and climate change, which cyclically compromise all our efforts and investments,’ recognised the chairman of EDM’s board of directors, Marcelino Gildo Alberto, quoted in the document.
Even so, the company noted that it continues to record ‘losses resulting from the vandalisation of electrical infrastructure and energy theft’.
Joaquim Henriques Ou-chim
“These acts delay the fulfilment of our goals, especially universal access to energy by 2030. That’s why we reiterate our call for community vigilance and for these illegal practices to be denounced. On EDM’s side, we will remain implacable in the face of the involvement of employees in these acts or any other form of corruption, the treatment of which, in relation to its perpetrators, will observe the maximum of zero tolerance,’ warned the then chairman of the board of directors.
