CEZ threatens to cut power for water companies

TIRANA, Sept 3 – The Czech CEZ national power company has threatened that it will cut its supplies of electricity to state-owned water management companies in Albania as authorities have called on CEZ to pay an equivalent of half a billion crowns (Euro 23 million) as an additional tax, daily Lidove noviny (LN) reports.
“We will cut state-owned companies from the electric current as they owe us over one billion crowns for unpaid electricity bills,” the daily quotes CEZ managers as saying.
The authorities insist on the payment although CEZ was not paid for its electricity. As a result, it must still pay the VAT and income tax to the Albanian state, LN writes.
“CEZ absolutely rejects this approach,” CEZ spokeswoman Barbora Pulpanova is quoted as saying.
CEZ has threatened to cut the supplies to the state-owned water management companies in order to have the debts of the total sum of 1.1 billion crowns repaid to it. The Albanian government has paid at least a part of its debt, LN writes.
Due to the problems, the Albanian daughter company has run into financial difficulties, LN writes.
Last June, Albania’s Energy Regulatory Entity (ERE) has lowered power prices for Czech-owned distribution operator CEZ Shperndarje by 23 percent after losing a legal battle with the company on the bad debt and continuous complaints about the unaffordable prices risking investments and CEZ’s presence in Albania
The decision followed a visit by Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas as CEZ was facing severe financial difficulty from the ERE decision and expensive power imports. CEZ Shp쳮darje, a subsidiary of ČEZ Group since 2009, owns and operates the entire 110kV distribution network in the country for a total length of 69,000 kilometers, serving around 1.1 million customers. CEZ took over former state-owned OSSH in March 2009, when it signed a contract with the Albanian government buying the majority 76 percent stake for 102 million Euros.