TIRANA, Oct. 21 – A year after the start of its massive electricity bill payment and anti-theft campaign, the Albanian government has held a conference to give the official results and declare the effort a success.
The state-owned power distribution company has collected this year USD200 million more than it did in 2013, and USD150 million more than in 2014.
Representatives of the government and energy-related institutions also pledged Tuesday to continue the reform in the sector.
A year ago, the government started a campaign to collect overdue and unpaid power bills from the consumers and to stop rampant theft from unregistered users of electricity.
Many Albanians faced power cuts, fines and imprisonments as part of the campaign. There were also more than 3,000 arrests on power theft charges.
About 300,000 new consumers, including businesses, signed new contracts with the state-owned power distribution corporation, OSHEE, authorities said.
OSHEE executives said at the conference that the company was no longer a burden to the government’s coffers. It would now be a contributor.
OSHEE CEO Ardian Cela said the company would invest the new earnings to improve services.
“The collection of the debt and reduction of losses followed a steady improvement of economic and financial indicators of the company. If the company in 2013 was unprofitable, this year, it is expected to have positive earnings of ALL10 billion,” Cela said. “Today the company is not a burden on the state budget, but contributes 3 percent.”
From the 40 percent loss in the network two years ago, in September it was only 25 percent, he added.
Prime Minister Edi Rama said that radical reform has given its positive impact in the country’s economy and life in general.
Rama said that the power corporation had accumulated USD1 billion in debt from 2007 to 2013, and the government campaign was the only way to shore up the company and power distribution system in the country.
Rama said that the company has collected more than USD500 million this year, or almost double compared to two years ago.
They have completed all the accumulated debts to unpaid energy the corporation had brought from other companies, many of them private ones.
The government has received a USD150 million loan from the World Bank to improve the network and also EUR20 million from Germany for the same purposes.
