By DA Jawo
The Barrow administration and its apologists are making quite a lot of noise about implementation of the rural electrification programme, however, completely ignoring the downside part of the project.
While there is no doubt that bringing electricity to the rural areas is positive development, but, like everything else, there are some not quite positive aspects which have deliberately been kept away from the people. For instance, extending electricity to the rural areas is certainly much more than just erecting poles and supplying them with electricity meters “free of charge”. Obviously, that alone is not enough to light their homes. Fixing meters for them is just one step towards giving them electricity. They need far much more than that, which of course includes purchasing cables and other electrical materials as well as engaging electricians to wire their houses for them. But, how many of them can actually afford the cost of that process? If indeed the government was interested in extending such services to the rural people, they could have gone the extra mile to help them wire their homes rather than just using the project as a campaign tool for President Adama Barrow’s re-election.
When I recently visited the village while the meters were being installed, I found everyone quite upbeat about the project, with many of them heaping praises on President Barrow and his administration for bringing “development” to their community. However, immediately after the meters were installed, it dawned on many of them that, contrary to the impression being given to them by President Barrow and his “wailers”, they needed much more than mere meters to get electricity. Therefore, when they tried to wire their homes in order to get the electricity into their houses, they realised that hardly anyone of them could afford the cost and as a result, most of those meters still remain there as mere decorations and many of the beneficiaries may never get the electricity that was promised to them.
Of course, since the installation of the meters, all manner of people had been going around the rural areas claiming to be electricians and charging quite exorbitant prices for the cables and other materials required to wire their homes.
One other negative aspect of the rural electrification is the failure of Nawec to sensitise the villagers about not only what it entails to get the electricity into their homes, but also the inherent dangers that electricity can pose to them. For instance, apart from the danger posed by engaging amateur electricians, some of whom may supply them sub-standard materials to wire their homes, there are also several other dangers posed by electricity for which the rural people should have been sensitised about. It is obvious that many of the dwellings upcountry are either grass-thatched huts or corrugated iron roofs, both of which are highly inflammable. As such therefore, it would take only a little spark to put the whole compound on fire.
It appears therefore that while Nawec were not fully prepared for this expansion, the Barrow administration were also not quite concerned about the possible negative implications of the project, but they were simply looking at the political benefits to the ruling NPP during this crucial campaign period. We can therefore easily anticipate the deafening noise that they would be making about it during the socalled “Meet The People’s Tour” which is scheduled to commence this week.
