Energy Minister says despite energy support from Senegal power remains costly in Gambia

By Adama Makasuba

Fafa J Sanyang, minister of Energy and Petroleum has said that despite the huge investment in rural electrification project with support from Senegal yet power cost in the country remains high.

The Minister of Energy was responding to questions from the lawmakers at the National Assembly in Banjul.

“Despite the huge investment in rural electrification project energy with sourcing from Senegal power is cheaper than our own production cost,” he told lawmakers.

He added that: “energy from Senegal is available 24\7 while NAWEC can only produce less than 20 hours a day due to high cost of production in the rural area.”

According to him, the savings made therein has enabled NAWEC to augment its operating hours in Central River Region and Upper River Region from 9 hours to 19 hours a day.

He said that the investment done by the ministry is both power generation and distribution in the country but the relationship in Senegal is only by the power and our generation cost is higher than what we are buying from Senegal

“Our projective investment in the NDP is about 4-5 million dollars to at least get 60% to operate in power generation and distribution in the country,” he said.

He said that the cost of production depends a lot on the energy source Senegal is producing cheaper, energy is produced from gas and they also have solar but that Gambia is only producing from FFO, describing it very expensive.

Meanwhile, he said that NAWEC had a problem of capacity too able to supply power the cost of production for NAWEC to supply electricity for longer hours in some places.

However, his ministry have to look at cheap production in putting NAWEC in to such position.