The Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC), Zambia’s leading supplier of electricity to mining companies, has reported a loss of $32m (£24m) in the first half of this financial year.

The figure represents the highest loss recorded by the company, which it attributes to the failure of Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) to pay its outstanding debt.

Last year, the government took over the operations of KCM - a local unit for global mining giants Vedanta – which CEC says owes it $144m.

The results, issued by CEC’s company secretary Julia Chaila, indicate that the company’s revenue from local supply reduced by 2% because of reduced demand from mining companies and the effect caused by KCM changing its power supplier.

KCM now gets its power supply from state-owned utility Zesco but it still uses CEC's infrastructure.