Electricity monopoly broken in DRC

  1. Posted on Wednesday 24 September 2008 - 13:10
    pweto
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    Emmanuel Pweto, AfricaNews reporter in Kinshasa, DRC
    Private companies can now invest in the electricity sector of DRC after a draft code was given prominence by the country's energy minister. The National Electricity Company will no longer be the only company to operate. The draft code is a new legal framework for management and operation of the sector.
    Those who have electricity in the slum are in the minority. Most people use fire lamps or try to make use of the floodlighting that exists in some areas.
    The Director of Société National d'Eléctrcité (SNEL), Albert Mbafumoya explained: "We have a society that has a virtual monopoly in electricity. So the idea is to ensure that private operators can enter this market. You can imagine that some corners of the Republic or certain other parties could be exploited by private.”

    “We have prepared a bill to make the sector for the arrival of private operators in the sector. Establish a new legal framework for management and operation of the electricity sector, i.e. it would have guardianship of the state is less burdensome on the electricity sector. This project must now be endorsed by civil society. There will be a workshop by the end of October," he added.

    Kibiswa Naupes, the moderator of the International public sector said: "It's a good idea to try to involve civil society in improving a code designed at government level; the second thing is that it is also good to design a system which regulates the price competition.”

    “But attention is that when competition regulates prices, there have also mechanisms that protect the weak, i.e. low income. But in this country, liberalism advance faster than the social. This means that the big winners continue to gain advantage on small and the state does not sufficiently protect small. So, it is also necessary that in this code, it is expected mechanisms that protect the small winners and especially rural people who can not pay the electric current has a price fixed at the rate of large sizes,” he added.

    The civil society in the in the Democratic Republic of Congo have welcomed the government’s initiative of involving them in the whole process. However, it calls for price regulation in the electricity sector, because, as the moderator of the Inter-Congolese national, it should also protect low-income and mostly rural populations who can not pay the electric current.

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