Monday night to the early hours of Tuesday, thousands of Gambians from Brikama to Banjul took to the streets burning thrash and holding candles in a show of spontaneous outrage to demonstrate against the electricity blackouts that have been ruining the lives of Gambians for the past weeks. People have been pushed to the wall and they had to find a way to vent their frustrations.
There have been allegations that patients have died because of the lack of electricity in hospitals and clinics. On Monday the main eye referral hospital in Kanifing was without power for about two hours leaving hundreds of patients, staff and visitors milling about aimlessly. The refrigerated foodstuff kept by financially-challenged households, shops and supermarkets are perishing. Businesses are spending thousands of dalasis on fuel for generators daily. And the summer heat is making rest or sleep in the house without electricity almost impossible. After pumping billions of dalasis into Nawec over the years, what do we have to show for it? Incessant blackouts?
This must end. The government must do everything — not something, everything — to ensure power blackouts come to an end in The Gambia. It is an economic emergency. Electricity is not a luxury. It is the foundation of productivity. Talk to any tailor in Latrikunda, any welder in Jimpex, any woman selling frozen fish in Tanji. Nawec’s on-and-off supply is not just an inconvenience; it is a daily tax on their income.
The Gambia wants investment. We talk about industrial parks, about agro-processing, about digital jobs. No serious investor will build a factory where the grid is a gamble. They will build in Senegal, in Ghana, in Rwanda, where power is stable. Every blackout is a signal to capital: Go elsewhere. How can we tell young people to become entrepreneurs when we cannot guarantee the current to power their businesses?
In our health centres, blackouts kill. Vaccines need cold chain. Babies in incubators need constant power. Surgeons need light. Nurses in rural clinics cannot work by candlelight and call it universal health coverage.
In our schools, blackouts steal learning. How does a student in Grade 12 prepare for WASSCE when the lights go at 7pm? How do teachers run a computer lab with no computers running?
Ending blackouts will not be cheap or easy, and Gambians are tired of excuses. We have heard about Karpowership, about the OMVG interconnection from Guinea, about the 30MW solar plant in Jambur, about fuel debts and technical losses. What we have not seen is a clear, time-bound plan that ends this crisis.
We need to fix the plumbing before buying more water. Nawec says it loses over 30% of power in technical and commercial losses — old cables, theft, poor billing. No new plant will solve that. We must invest urgently in transmission and distribution and enforce accountability for theft and non-payment, including by government institutions.
Nawec must speed up diversification. The OMVG line and the Greater Banjul solar projects are welcome, but they have been “coming soon” for too long. The government should fast-track independent power producers, especially solar, with transparent contracts that do not mortgage our future. The sun is one resource The Gambia will never run out of.
The government should wake up and smell the coffee. These blackouts are a national security issue given what happened on Monday night to Tuesday morning. Spontaneous outbursts of public anger. And happening in the cover of the night when nefarious and opportunistic elements could use it to commit brigandage and vandalism. In fact there have been reports of destruction of Nawec properties and groups of angry youths daring to march on to State House in Banjul and the vice president’s private home in Farato.
The government should also be alive to the political cost it could incur if the situation is not resolved immediately. This is an election year and opponents of President Barrow will use it as a fodder for their campaign, as Unite’s Bensouda did at his Brikama rally over the weekend. The government should remember that more than anything, Nawec’s tariff hikes cost on the eve of an election, cost it the last local government polls.