Barely days after the signing of the contract for the US$10 million Rural Electrification Project for Western Region between the government of The Gambia, the National Water and Electricity Company (Nawec) and the Global Trading Group, the minister for Energy, Sira Wally Ndow-Njie and some senior officials of Nawec Saturday visited some of the project sites in Western Region.
 
The project, which is being funded by the private window of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in collaboration with the government of The Gambia and Nawec, is expected to cover about 42 major settlements in Western Region from Kartong to Kalagi. According to officials of Nawec, the work is expected to last till December 2010.
 
The tour party first visited the Ballast Nedam Station, now under Nawec in Brikama; Siffoe, Mandinaba, and the Brikama Power Station, were some of the project materials most notably cables for transmission and distribution networks, transformers, transmission and distribution poles among a host of other things were stored.
 
Speaking to reporters at Brikama Power Station, shortly after the end of the site visit, Baba Fatajo, the director of Power Generation at Nawec disclosed that preceding the formal contract signing, a lot of work has been done as all the materials needed for the project were acquired. According to him, the project was in fulfilment of the promise by His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, to the Gambian people and in particular to the people of Western Region. The first phase of the Rural Electrification Project covered areas like the North Bank Region, Central River Region and Lower River Region and Upper River Region. This time around, we are coming to the Western Region and 44 settlements will benefit from the project," he said.
 
In addition to that, he continued, "the government of The Gambia has also acquired two 6.4 mega watts generators that are being installed at the Brikama Power Station to augment electricity capacity in the Greater Banjul Area as well as the Rural Electrifation Project. 

Fatajo further pointed out that in addition to the Western Region electrification there is another project underway for the extension of the rural electrification programme otherwise called rural electrification extension project, as they have already secured the services of the other consultants from India, to be funded by Ecowas Bank for Investment through the Indian Line up Credit and the Government of The Gambia. "So at the moment we have already identified some 44 settlements in the regions I had mentioned in the first phase i.e. NBR, CRR, LRR and URR. Basically, we will have an extended network covering unelectrified areas as well as augment the operational capacities in our four major stations namely Kerewan, Farefenni, Bansang and Basse respectively," he revealed.
 
He said the project is geared towards realising the president's vision of making sure that development is extended to every corner of Gambia and to turn the country into a Silicon Valley of Africa. Fatajo emphasised that there cannot be meaningful development in any country without the development of the power sector adding that the president and his entire government recognised this and so have been giving it a lot of attention. 
 
He finally extended his sincere gratitude to the president and his government for the support given to Nawec and assured that they will leave up to expectation. For his part, Amine Saad, the project manager Global Trading Group, disclosed that he has done series of similar projects in The Gambia adding that work will start in earnest.