The President made this pronouncement while giving his annual State of the Nation Address (SoNA) yesterday at the National Assembly.
He highlighted that in 2024, the country unveiled the first-ever utility-large scale solar park of twenty-three Megawatts (23 MW) in Jambur. Furthermore, he said, a tender is underway for an extra fifty Megawatts (50 MW) solar plant in Jarra Soma, which can be scaled up to one hundred and fifty Megawatts (150 MW) of renewable energy.
“To provide additional support towards universal electricity access, my administration introduced a subsidy programme and reduced the cost of electricity meters from eight thousand, five hundred Dalasis (D8,500) to five hundred Dalasi (D500) within the project-covered areas.
“This facilitated seventy-two thousand (72,000) new household connections by December,” he said.
He added that the Cabinet has also approved the split of NAWEC into separate water and electricity companies. The strategy is to improve service delivery, ensure accountability, and enhance operational focus.
“The energy sector remains central to our national development objectives for economic growth, industrialisation, social modernisation, and progress,” he said.
The President also stated that the Trans-Gambia Corridor Special Economic Zone Project is progressing well, as part of the wider Praia-Dakar-Abidjan-Lagos Multi-modal Corridor.
“The study for this project was done with support from the African Development Bank and ECOWAS,” he explained. “The National Industrial Policy and the GIEPA Act 2015 are now being updated. The objectives are to support industrialisation initiatives, attract investment, modernise our industrial ecosystem, and promote value-added production to enable private sector growth and expand job creation.”
