By Musa Basadi Jawara
Generators at the port of Banjul — and this morning, Tuesday, October 6, 2026, they rolled.
Already transported today with blaring sirens and a full police escort fending off vehicular traffic, clearing the road from Banjul to Brikama, as if a Head of State was passing. But it was not a Head of State. It was two colossal 10.5-megawatt beasts, 21 megawatts of steel and hope, crawling out of the port toward Brikama Power Station. A third, we are told, is en route.
Vice President Muhammed B.S. Jallow was there to receive them at the port, flanked by cabinet ministers and NPP stalwarts. Cameras, smiles, handshakes. A national fanfare. A procession of power — literally.
After months of darkness, of children doing homework by phone torch, of mothers throwing away rotten fish, of small businesses counting losses, and of patients gasping in hospital wards when oxygen machines went off and surgeries were postponed in the dark — of a nation pushed to its knees, of young Gambians marching in the streets shouting “We want light!” — the government finally had something to show.
For this to be an open and transparent affair, let Hilltop Radio’s Ebrima Jarra and Lamin Sanyang, who broadcast it, and Standard Newspaper’s erudite Editor-in-Chief Lamin Cham and other media houses who made the revelation in celebratory fashion after months of darkness, be given the full contract.
They reported what they were told, but the major omission remains: the contractual details.
What must be revealed on this transaction, in the interest of transparency, is this:
1. The Contractor: Full legal name, company registration, beneficial owners, and country of origin.
2. The Money: Total contract value, unit price per megawatt, cost of the third generator now said to be en route, and whether taxes, shipping, and installation are included.
3. The Pre-financing: Interest rate, repayment period, grace period, currency of repayment, and total cost to the Gambian taxpayer at maturity.
4. The Procurement: Was it open competitive tender or single-source? Where is the tender notice, the evaluation report, and the Gambia Public Procurement Authority approval?
5. The Strings Attached: Who supplies the fuel? Who supplies spare parts? Who does operation and maintenance? For how many years? Is NAWEC locked into this contractor?
6. The Protection: Warranty period, performance guarantees, penalty clauses for late delivery or under-performance, and insurance.
7. The Paper Trail: The signed contract itself, tabled before the National Assembly.
Until these seven are published, we have fanfare without facts, generators without governance, and light bought in darkness.
This is election politics. Given the electricity protests of the recent past, President Barrow promised that light would improve by the end of October. Now October has come and generators appear at the port like magic. Electricity as theater. Fanfare as policy.
The contractor remains a mystery. In this day and age, a transaction of this magnitude where even the nation’s top journalists, when contacted, cannot disclose the name of the contractor — is an opaque posture. No transparency at all. I am bewildered; discombobulated; completely in a bind.
Conclusion: On vacation, but not silent — because ghosts’ hunt
I write this from vacation. As promised in my mission-accomplished piece this past weekend, I said I would keep an eye on The Gambia even while away. And this generator affair — and I call it an affair deliberately, because a case is something that is filed, but an affair is something that is hidden — is a case in point.
On vacation or not, I will not be silent.
And fate has given us a powerful juxtaposition this week to reflect upon.
As the Vice President was at Banjul port receiving opaque generators, the International Special Prosecutor, Martin Hackett, was across the coast at Ocean Bay Hotel in Cape Point holding a town hall meeting with Gambian lawyers. There, the Jammeh-era transgressions finally began to take center stage. Hackett outlined how his office is building cases — not just against those who pulled the trigger, but those who ordered, planned, encouraged, or assisted crimes; those who exercised command and control over criminal conduct.
Yes, the nature of the cases are different. One is about blood and torture and enforced disappearances. The other is about procurement and megawatts and public money. One belongs to the TRRC’s list. The other belongs to the audit reports we have yet to read. One is a crime against humanity. The other, if proven, is a crime against the economy.
But let this be a lesson to the current government: Transactions haunt.
The difference is only in time and statute. Jammeh’s men thought their contracts, their deals, their signatures on paper giving away our wealth, would never be questioned. They thought power would protect them forever. Today, at Ocean Bay, lawyers are debating their liability.
So I warn this government: Today’s pre-financed generator with a ghost contractor can become tomorrow’s exhibit before a court, a commission, or a people who finally ask, “Where did our money go?” If you sign in darkness, you will answer in daylight.
I am on vacation, yes. But I am a Gambian first. My father Basad raised me never to be afraid to speak truth to power, even at great personal cost, even when my voice shakes, even when the crowd chooses silence. And my mother, Na Bintou, taught me that a debt you hide today is the burden your children will pay tomorrow — that a mother who cannot explain to her children why the lights are off, cannot explain why the bread is expensive, has been betrayed by opaque deals signed in her name.
Publish the contractor. Publish the contract. Let Hilltop Radio, let Lamin Cham, let every Gambian see the light — not just from the generator, but from the truth.
I will not be silent. Not now. Not ever.
