Madagascar on way to make autonomous electricity/water company

Madagascar is on way to make autonomous its electricity and water company JIRAMA to provide quality service, a senior official said Thursday.

“Our goal is to make the state-owned company JIRAMA independent of any state subsidy within three years,” JIRAMA Director-General Olivier Jaomiary, who was newly appointed to the position, told Xinhua in an interview.

“The problem of JIRAMA is not a technical problem but a governance matter,” Jaomiary said.

“We would like to lower the JIRAMA tariff by improving our equipment and networks in terms of quality and quantity,” Jaomiary added.

Jaomiary also asked customers to denounce the thieves of electricity to reduce the loss of the company equivalent to one third of its production.

The JIRAMA has said it would install smart meters in 8,500 companies to identify their real consumption.

JIRAMA will also accelerate the distribution of meters for new customers, Jaomiary said. The delay on meters installation have been harshly criticized by customers who had asked for it since 2012.

The use of thermal power have pushed up the cost of electricity in Madagascar. The country is ranked the 16th for the social tariff and the 17th for the industrial tariff on 39 similar countries in Africa, according to the World Bank.

The coverage of electricity in Madagascar is still low with only 13 percent of its 23-million population linked to electricity, compared to 52 percent in Senegal and more than 75 percent in South Africa.

Madagascar is rich in energy potential which remains largely untapped. The country has an average potential of 2,000 kwh per square meter by year in solar energy and about 7,800 MW hydroelectric potential but only 165 MW of which are exploited. Enditem

Source: Xinhua/NewsGhana.com.gh

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