Media visits OMVG project sites

The media last Monday embarked on a two- day visit to project sites of The Gambia River Basin Development Organisation (OMVG) in West Coast and Lower River regions respectively.

The media was led by the OMVG officials from The Gambia and Senegal, with the objective of getting first-hand information on progress made in the implementation of the energy project and the positive impacts on the lives of the people living within those areas.

Bai Lamin Sillah, the national coordinator of the OMVG projects in The Gambia, said the purpose of the visit was to brief the media about the ongoing works at the project sites. “You have seen the works that has just started going on”, he told the press.”

Saikou Sanyang, deputy permanent secretary at the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources, said The Gambia River Basin Development Organisation is a sub-regional basin organisation created on 30 June, 1978, comprising The Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Senegal.

DPS Sanyang explained that the OMVG High Commission is the executing agency of the integrated development programmes of the four member states for a rational and harmonious exploitation of the common resources of The Gambia.

According to him, the OMVG project consists of the construction of the Sambangalou Hydroelectric dam with an installed capacity of 128 MW and a 225-KV power transmission line stretching across 1,677 km with 15 high voltage/medium voltage substations and two dispatching centers.

The total cost of the International Line and the Sambangalou Hydroelectric dam is estimated at USD 1,147,462,262.

Bakary Sanyang, governor of Western Coast Region who welcomed the team to his region, said the land owners were compensated because it was their lands that were being used as working ground.

 Governor Sanyang informed journalists that the sub-station is about 300 square metres, adding that the problems of electricity were known to everyone in the country especially in terms of internet. “So now with the coming of the OMVG project, we have the flexibility of having more data coming in.”