Barely 72 hours after President Barrow’s strong assurance of uninterrupted power supply across the country for a long time to come, many parts of The Gambia have started to experience extreme power cuts with some suggesting that the President must be embarrassed by NAWEC’s epileptic power supply after the strong presidential assurance.
The Gambian leader asserted in a ruling party political gathering in the regional capital of Brikama last weekend that the painful power cuts that the nation endured for weeks was just a technical glitch, to which his government has long found a durable solution. He even went as far as launching a verbal attack on the general-secretary and leader of the Gambia’s main opposition party, suggesting that Hon. Darboe was trying to gain political capital out of the severe, widespread national electricity grid failure. Mr. Barrow promised that the population “will not” endure such a hardship for a long time.
However, the country enjoyed just some hours of normal power supply before rolling blackouts returned.
At the time of this post, many parts of the country were enveloped in pitched darkness.
Top UDP official and erstwhile secretary-general and head of The Gambia’s civil service Mr. Larie Ceesay was trying to understand why the national water and electricity company was still struggling to improve services, despite millions of dollars in investment.
Mr. Ceesay said in a Coffee Time With Peter Gomez interview recently that his calculation showed that more than US$400 million was pumped into NAWEC in recent years. NAWEC has yet to respond.
