Gambia’s president Adama Barrow is directly intervening to help restore sanity to his country’s perennial energy deficit, which has deteriorated in recent weeks, APA can report on Thursday.
A statement from his office confirmed the removal of the National Water and Electricity Company boss Baba Fatajo, apparently over the epileptic state of energy distribution across the country.
Fatajo’s removal comes into effect on Friday after which he will be redeployed to the Foreign Service as a diplomat, the presidency said.
Barrow has since named Fatajo’s successor as Mr Alpha Robinson whose appointment takes effect on July 1st.
Observers say the intervention from the president comes as power outages which went down earlier this year, suddenly picked up in recent weeks.
Nawec still struggles with electricity distribution and took to the media to sensitize the public on the rational use of power generally.
It encourages households to switch off lights that are unnecessarily on, thereby saving energy and allowing for the expansion of its consumer base in the face of growing demand for electricity.
Recent rains punctuated by headwinds in the Upper River Region earlier in June left extensive damages to Nawec facilities in the area including electric poles.
Electricity supply has been adversely hit for days on end despite trouble-shooting by the national utility company to fix the problem.
In a bid to plug the deficit between supply and demand, Nawec signed a cross-border agreement with Senegal’s national power company Senelec for the supply of electricity in Gambian towns located in the North Bank Region.
Following that deal, pressure on the national grip had eased as power supply improved between late 2017 and early 2019.
WN/as/APA