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

Mr Sanyang was responding to questions from lawmakers at the National Assembly in Banjul.

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

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 with Senegal “is only by the power (supply) 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.

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

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

However, he said his ministry has to look at cheap production in putting NAWEC in a good position to deliver.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba