Maputo, Mozambique — Theft and sabotage, company officials say, continue to hinder expansion of the Mozambican electricity grid.

"We are not able to police all of our vast electricity network, which has thousands of kilometres of transmission lines," bemoaned the chairman of the State-owned electricity company (EDM), Vicente Veloso.

Speaking to reporters after signing an agreement on funding the rehabilitation and expansion of power lines in the southern city of Matola, Veloso urged cooperation from the police, the courts and society at large in combating the plunder of cables and pylon parts.

"Society complains that our services are poor, but it's the same society that reacts passively to the theft of cables and the sabotage of electrical installations," the EDM executive charged.

Veloso said there was now a successful experience of civil society cooperating with EDM to combat theft in the northern province of Nampula.

He wanted to see this repeated in other parts of the country, particularly in Maputo province, the area worst hit by theft.