“Governments are in a difficult situation,” concedes Heba Samir, regional sales manager at Elsewedy Electric, the Egyptian electrical equipment giant present in nineteen African countries.
This is the case, for example, in Cameroon, which has decided, for the period from 2023 to 2025, to increase the prices applied by the electricity company Eneo to its medium-voltage customers, while setting “minimum thresholds for negotiating tariffs for so-called ‘large accounts'”, announced the Electricity Sector Regulation Agency in a decision published on 12 December 2022.
This is also the case in Senegal, which decided, from 1 January, to reduce the subsidy for consumption exceeding 150 kilowatt hours. “The state subsidy continues to be effective for all consumption bands of Senelec [Senegal’s national electricity company]. Tunisia, whose electricity needs are partly met by its neighbour Algeria, has some of the lowest rates in Africa, with 3 euros for 75 KWh per month, according to a recent study by Deloitte, far from the prices charged in Congo, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire or Morocco .There are other options. In Morocco, where tariffs are regulated by an interministerial commission, no increase has been applied despite the alarming situation of the Office national de l’électricité et de l’eau potable .