Baboucarr Faal, NAWEC’s power generation director responsible for the management of power stations in Kotu and Brikama area has said that the demand for electricity in The Gambia is higher than what the company can produce.
According to him, NAWEC’s power generation capacity is always below the demand of the people. He said power generation is a difficult business and needs lot of resources.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday at Kotu power station, Faal admitted that the current power situation in the country is bad but his department is doing everything possible to make sure they cope with the demand in electricity supply.
“This is a situation that has been here since independence. We have never been able to meet the demand in our history. We always try to cope. NAWEC alone cannot do it. We need government, bilateral and unilateral support so that we will be able to make more power generation” he said.
According to Faal, at NAWEC, they don’t have reserve for the generators machines resulting to constant problems of this nature.
“In Kotu, we only have two machines that are working and in normal situation all engines should work but they all have breakdown. The problem is that all the machines were brought here as second hand machines. They have been here for long, some 15 years and others 25 years and still running. Again, to maintain aging machines of this size is very difficult and time consuming. But also, resources will contribute a lot. We need to have resources to maintain these machines” he said.
Faal appealed to the general public to be more patient. He said NAWEC did not have the adequate resources to make sure electricity supply is constant and stable to the door steps of customers but assured that they doing all they can to restore things to normalcy.
