By Omar Bah
The Commercial Director of the National Water & Electricity Company, Tijan Manneh, has said that KMC is not willing to take responsibility of the D84 Million they owed Nawec.
He said contrary to what the CEO claimed, KMC has never written to them concerning the street light meters or the arrears they owed to the company.
Mr Manneh said the Council should stop beating around the bush and face the facts on the ground, saying NAWEC’s operations are very transparent.
“If KMC wants us to show them their connection centers, we will be glad to do so because we did the same thing with the Gambia Armed Forces and the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education.
“KMC owes us; whatever the case maybe, be it the street lights or their office, they are responsible. These bills are sent to them on monthly basis, but they are not paying anything,” Manneh told The Standard in an exclusive interview.
He said if KMC were making some commitment one would have understood, “but they made no effort and this warrants us to disconnect them because they are not willing to take responsibility. Just to inform you also, we have disconnected their water supply as well.
“We think it is their responsibility either to come and negotiate with us or write a proposal to our office to tell us what best mechanism we can engage with them so that they can pay off their arrears instead of trying to making false allegation against us,” he said.
Manneh said before disconnecting KMC, they had engaged AMRC on the issue so that they can help them recover the debt but nothing has improved.
“We are definitely open to any query and we always make sure that we attend to all queries to the best of our ability. We have a policy which if any person or institution defaults to pay their due, we are empowered to disconnect you and KMC is not an exception, because we did the same thing to Brikama Area Council,” he added.
He said people should understand that NAWEC cannot operate effectively without finance and it is not possible to allow people or institutions to owe and then expect them to continue taking loans from banks with high interest rates.
