By Tabora Bojang
Gambian economist and politician Dr Ousman Gajigo has said the power shedding announcement made by Nawec due to high demand in this Ramadan exposes the government’s “politics of electricity” by prioritising expansion and distribution at the expense of generation capacity.
Nawec issued a public notice on Tuesday that due to “exceptionally high electricity demand” during the Ramadan and Lenten seasons, it will implement minimal load shedding to maintain system stability.
In reaction, many customers took to the social media to vent their frustrations with many dismissing the government’s universal access initiative which they believed has put the system under a heavy strain amid a low generational capacity.
For his part, Dr Gajigo, a senior member of Gambia For All Party told The Standard: “The example I always give on this is that of water. If you want to make sure people have access to water, you should be drilling boreholes first, or water treatment plants first, instead of putting pipes and taps into every compound when there is no borehole. So this is what the government is doing with electricity right now. They are just expanding distribution: connecting villages and towns all over the country. But they did not address where the electricity is coming from.”
He said since 2017 the government has not constructed any major electricity power plant in the country.
“Everybody knows we don’t have enough electricity in this country, so before you add more households and create a massive overload, you need to make sure you have generation. But right now we don’t have generation. We don’t have any power plants. We are importing electricity from Senegal and we are in fact arrears which means Senegal can cut off power for us anytime” Dr Gajigo warned.
He suggested that the right sequence the government could have taken was to first increase the generation capacity, build more power plants and then connect villages and towns.
“But the only reason they are doing this expansion without building power plants is for political reasons because the president wants to campaign on two things: that he is building roads and expanding electricity to rural areas. So this is purely a political campaign exercise,” he alleged.
He said the implications of this is that there will be more power cuts because Nawec is connecting more people than it can supply.
Dr Gajigo also criticised the awarding of power supply contract to Turkish supplier Karpower which he said was costing US$30 million per year.
This large amount, he argued could have been used to build a new power plant.
He also accused the government of failing to invest in Nawec’s maintenance capacity which could pose serious problems.
“If you are expanding electricity, the maintenance team and the maintenance project and maintenance staffing of the utility company needs to be expanded accordingly. But that hasn’t been done. So from 2027, there will be very little electricity to those who are connected. Either because the cost will be high, or there won’t be enough electricity, or when there are breakdowns, there will not be maintenance staff available to do the necessary basic repairs,” Gajigo, a former ADB staff warned.
