This question was posed to Halifa Sallah after Nawec said at their press conference that the energy agreement with Karpower will not be renewed because of their capacity to fill in the gap. Halifa Sallah indicated that the government had been heading towards a dangerous strategy of energy dependency rather than energy sovereignty by having agreement with Senelec and Karpower. He said that Senelec is generating approximately one-quarter of the energy it supplies to Senegal and Gambia included. That it also purchases power from private concerns and thus has a mercantile relationship with The Gambia in buying from others to sell to The Gambia. Those who could remember the National Assembly should be able to remember that the minister of petroleum and energy told the National Assembly last year that Nawec owed Senelec D1.2 billion as power purchase for just three months.
It was enough for the government to claim that there was enough energy supply for propaganda purposes, but failed to tell the nation that they were pushing the nation towards the debt trap of energy dependency instead of enhancing and consolidating energy sovereignty as befits a sovereign country.
A change of trajectory is signaled by the press conference indicating that Nawec has through their capacity the ability to produce what they used to purchase from Karpower.
The next target is to fill the gap that is currently being supplied by Senelec. Foroyaa needs to interview Nawec to find out its total generation capacity, the total output needed to meet consumer demand, how the gap is being filled and when they will fill the gap.
