The Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas (STEG) struggles to contain an intensifying financial pressure, caught between the accumulation of its debts, the slow collection of its receivables, and a persistent rise in electrical losses, a significant portion of which results from illegal connections and electricity theft.
Far from being reduced to a mere issue of technical management, this situation directly questions the sustainability of the public company’s economic model, a pillar of the country’s energy security.
A constrained financial situation
STEG’s debts reached 7,356 million dinars in June 2026, a level accompanied by 6,061 million dinars of unrecovered receivables from a range of clients, both public and private.
This gap between liabilities and outstanding receivables translates a worrying reality: a substantial portion of the services already provided by the company has not yet been converted into mobilizable cash.
The persistence of this indebtedness limits STEG’s ability to finance its investments, to maintain its networks and to honor its financial commitments within timeframes compatible with its activity.
The issue of unpaid receivables is not limited to the solvency of customers. It also concerns the amounts due under electricity subsidies, accumulated over time in favor of the company. Indeed, STEG bears the entire cost of electricity production, while the tariffs applied do not fully cover this charge, making the regular payment of these subsidies a determining factor of its overall financial balance.
Electric losses, an aggravating factor:
The phenomenon of electrical losses constitutes one of the main sources of financial hemorrhage for the company.
Their rate stands at about 19.7%, according to data presented during a session of the Finance and Budget Commission, a substantial portion of this volume being attributable to electricity theft and unauthorized connections to the grid.
This loss represents a double hit for STEG. It bears the full cost of production, transmission and distribution of the electricity in question, with no financial counterpart to offset this effort.
Therefore, the fight against these diversions goes beyond the mere framework of regulatory control to become a full-fledged financial lever, capable of directly increasing the company’s resources and alleviating pressure on its budget.
This issue takes on an additional dimension given the gap already recorded between the selling price of electricity and its production cost.
