The debt of the Macedonian state electricity producer AD ESM at the end of March this year amounted to 17 million euros, according to data from the Ministry of Finance, which ranks it among the third largest debtors in the public sector.
At the end of last year, ESM had a debt of 7.3 million euros and was among the top 10 largest government debtors.
These indicators show that in just three months, ie from the beginning of the year to the end of March, the debt of state power plants increased by as much as 10 million euros, which coincides with the beginning of the biggest energy crisis in the country.
At the end of the third quarter of last year, AD ESM had a significantly lower debt – 1.44 million euros. This means that in the last six months, the debt of the ESM has increased by close to 16 million euros.
For more than a month, the companies have not received money from the government to cover the losses caused by the energy crisis, but they are still looking for ways to finance the “gap” between the high purchase price of electricity and the relatively low selling price for households.
One of the newer decisions was for one of the more liquid state joint stock companies to approve a loan to state power plants. ESM confirmed that it received a loan of around 1.5 million euros from the State Lottery.
Vasko Kovacevski, general director of AD ESM, said that the company would need another 100 million euros by the end of the year to overcome the energy crisis. He announced borrowing from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the amount of 50 to 100 million euros.
At the end of April this year, ESM announced that the package of austerity measures reduced the salaries of directors, as well as investments and public procurement.
In the annual plan, public procurement was reduced by 96 million euros, expenditures by 8.3 million euros and investments by 117 million euros.
In February alone, the government paid 58m euros in aid to state-owned power plants. In 2022, in less than two months, 80 million euros were spent from the budget for this purpose. If the payments from 2021 are added to that, the total amount of support reaches 166 million euros.
Source: faktor.mk
