Energie du Mali (EDM), the company in charge of energy production and distribution, cut the electricity of the National Assembly of Mali since yesterday Monday March 13, 2017, for non-payment of bills.
« It was around 11 am that we made the cut. So from 11 am yesterday till now that I’m speaking to you, it is not us who are providing the Assembly with electricity », says Harouna Dembélé, major account manager at the EDM.
At the Assembly we play hide-and-seek: « There is nobody in the office of the Energy and Mining Commission to answer you », answers the operator contacted by Sahelien.com. But an employee confirms « since yesterday at midday, they put the generators on ».
203,151,111 CFA francs, this is the exact amount that the National Assembly owes to EDM SA. « There are the bills for the year 2012 (a few months) in the amount of 27. 951,998 FCFA, a few bills of 2013 that make 54,517,716 FCFA », Dembélé explains.
In 2015, the hemicycle did not pay any of its electricity bills, according to the account manager. This amounts to 84,716,980 CFA francs. As for the year 2016, it is from August that the Assembly stopped the payment, which is 35,964,417 francs of debts.
This year too, the bill of 2,992,285 CFA francs for the month of January has not been paid. What has not been accounted for in the 203,151,111 F CFA.
« We sent several notices of cut to the Assembly without reaction, » regrets Harouna Dembélé.
This year the operational budget of the Assembly amounts to more than 15 billion Francs CFA, of which 591,656 million are allocated to communication and energy.
Aissata Ahmadou