By Fatou Dahaba
Banjul Central National Assembly Member Hon. Abdoulie Njai on Wednesday tabled a Matter of the Day on The Gambia’s deepening electricity crisis, urging government to abandon short-term firefighting and pursue lasting reform of the power sector.
Presenting the motion as a matter of urgent public importance, Njai said the country’s electricity problem was not new. Successive efforts from the Gambia Utilities Corporation to the National Water and Electricity Company (NAWEC) failed to deliver reliable supply despite decades of restructuring and investment.
“The question before us is not whether we have tried. We clearly have,” he told lawmakers. “The question is: why, after almost fifty years of interventions, have we still not been able to deliver a reliable and sustainable electricity system for the Gambian people?”
Njai said worsening blackouts had driven citizens into the streets, with some communities reportedly enduring outages of up to 30 hours. He acknowledged steps taken by President Adama Barrow, including visits to NAWEC facilities, the creation of a presidential task force and a national address. Those measures, he argued, must mark the start of a durable solution rather than another temporary intervention.
He called for a broad overhaul of the sector: increased generation capacity, modernized transmission and distribution networks, a sharp reduction in technical and commercial losses, stronger operational efficiency, and improved financial sustainability. He also urged a review of NAWEC’s human resource structure, saying the utility needed the right people, skills, leadership and accountability.
Electricity, Njai said, was no longer a recurring inconvenience but a national emergency touching health, education, business and human dignity.
“Electricity is not a luxury. It is essential to healthcare, education, food preservation, businesses, jobs, productivity and economic growth,” he said. “The time has come for decisive reforms that go beyond temporary fixes and finally deliver a sustainable solution for the Gambian people.”
He condemned vandalism and warned that destruction of public property would only deepen the crisis. Gambians, he said, should demand accountability peacefully through democratic institutions.
During the debate, Hon. Almameh Gibba, Member for Foni Kansala, said NAWEC’s problems ran deeper than public statements and policy pronouncements. Management, he argued, must be held accountable for years of inefficiency and poor oversight despite significant public spending on electricity projects. He urged the President and Vice President to speak directly with junior and field staff, who he said understood the institution’s real operational failures.
Hon. Bakary Badgie of Foni Bintang criticized continued reliance on imported power, warning that such dependence was unsustainable. He asked when promised transformers would arrive, whether they would be enough to end the crisis, and what long-term plan existed beyond current regional supply arrangements.
The motion lands amid months of load-shedding, public anger and government pledges of emergency action. Lawmakers across the floor framed reliable electricity not as a political talking point but as the foundation of everyday life — and said The Gambia could no longer treat darkness as normal.
