Business

Haiti: National Power Company Losing 11 Million USD per Month

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) – The Haitian national power company receives about 6 million U.S. dollars per month for expenses that are around 17 million; the situation of the electricity company is not sustainable, revealed Garry Valdemar, the Director of Electricity of Haiti (EDH).

“Today, the revenues of EDH can cover about 30% of the operating budget, which includes wages, purchase of energy and fuel for power plants can operate [...] the situation is that the EDH receives about 6 million U.S. dollars per month for expenses that are around 17 million, financially, the company is not sustainable”, confesses Garry Valdemar the Director of the national company.

However, Mr Valdemar remains confident that the situation will improve with the aid of Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) that will allow the rehabilitation of several distribution circuits and that of the hydroelectric plant of Péligre.

“Now we must work to get us out of this situation. For purchases of energy, we get 200 million gourds per month and we spend for these purchases nearly 460 million [...] when you are a client of EDH that means you have a contract with us, normally, that you have electricity or not, you have a minimum bill to pay, because in our pricing structure there is the cost of equipment which is amortized over a number of years”, he says.

“We will rehabilitate distribution lines to provide a power of quality, in quantity and time so that the population is satisfied, these lines need to be rehabilitated and during this exercise, we will begin studies and the projects enter in their implementation phase, normally in early January 2012”, director announces.