Gambia: Businesses Closing In Gambia Due To Lack Of Electricity And Water; Restaurant And Hotel Owners Losing Millions Because Of NAWEC!

Lack of stable electricity and water supply is driving businesses and investors from the Gambia, the Freedom Newspaper has gathered. Many businesses have closed, following the National Water and Electricity Company (NAWEC’S) in ability to provide twelve good hours of solid electricity and water supply to consumers.

The recent power outages have hampered negatively towards the business sector. Business owners have complained about an unprecedented decline in their daily sales. Hence, many shop owners have resorted to closing their shops until the electricity crisis is fixed by the government.

Also, hard hit by NAWEC’s power outages is hotel, restaurant and newspaper owners. The company owners have been spending greater chunk of their companies’ budgets to fuel their standby generators. This has resulted to many companies here in Banjul operating in losses.

A local Newspaper named withheld is unable to pay its staff due to acute budgetary constraints facing the company. Many staffers are working  at that paper without being paid at the end of the month. The press house in question also relied on bank overdrafts to upkeep the company, and its staff.

Tailoring shops in Serre-Kunda, Banjul, and its environs have closed due to lack of light. Tailors sat for hours in their shops without electricity. 

In the meantime, some swimming pools in our hotels are running out of clean water due to NAWEC’S inability to provide water for Gambian consumers. The winter tourist season is here and our swimming pools are in such a precarious messy situation. The sanitary conditions in some of these pools is left to be desired.

Some hotel owners might be forced to embark on hiring freeze until the current power outages are resolved. They spent a lot of money in maintaining their beverages and food freezers (cold stores).  

Over millions of dalasis worth of household appliances have been destroyed by NAWEC since the outages begun. Restaurant and hotel owners are the hardest hit victims of the NAWEC disaster.

At the hospital level, surgical operations are being delayed in some occasions due to lack of stability in terms of power supply from NAWEC. Frequent power outages is becoming a disruptive factor towards patient care management. Hence, many patients are dying at government operated health facilities.

President Adama Barrow made a commitment to Gambians shortly after he was elected into office last December, by promising to partially resolve NAWEC’s power outages. He said he was going to resolve the problem within six months of his presidency. But nothing has changed as far NAWEC’s situation is concerned. The situation is getting from bad to worse. Nine months into Barrow’s presidency, he is yet to fulfill his promise of stabilizing NAWEC’s endless power outages. 

The power crisis situation is worrisome! Government needs to invest heavily towards revamping this important sector of national development.