BISSAU (Reuters) – Guinea-Bissau’s capital was plunged into darkness on Tuesday after Turkish company Karpowership cut off electricity supplies to the West African nation due to an unpaid debt of $17 million, the economy minister said.
Minister Suleimane Seidi said arrangements were underway to pay $15 million of arrears owed by the Electricity and Water Company of Guinea-Bissau and promised the issue would be resolved within 15 days.
Karpowership, one of the world’s largest operators of floating power plants and part of the Karadeniz Energy Group, has been supplying 100% of Guinea-Bissau’s electricity needs since signing a deal in 2019, according to its website.
“Karpower has agreed to renegotiate with the government to ensure that the backlog does not become a problem,” Seidi said at a press conference after a meeting with local Karpowership representative Prince Lamptey Tetteh.
Tetteh said: “The debt does not belong to the current authorities, but they have undertaken to settle it. We are waiting for the bank to finalise the process of transferring part of the debt.”
In September, Karpowership switched off the electricity supply to Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown due to an unpaid debt of around $40 million.
(Reporting by Alberto Dabo; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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