“I just listened to Honourable Bah and I think the things he said made sense,” Dr Ceesay noted. “One thing he really said which I really support, and I think NAWEC should pay attention to, is for NAWEC to communicate better and to give people a proper load-shedding schedule.”
Dr Ceesay said the government understands public frustration over frequent outages and is not dismissing it.
“There is a problem, we acknowledge that. And for us as a government, we take this as a serious national concern,” he admits, saying: “We are treating this as a national concern now and we are not taking this thing lightly.
“Each government must be accountable for the services it provides. That is a fact. And President Barrow accepts this responsibility and his government accepts this responsibility that we should be accountable for the services.”
Dr Ceesay reiterated that the President takes the matter “very seriously” and that the government is working “24 hours around the clock” to resolve it.
“We understand the anger and the frustration of the public insofar as this issue is concerned. We hear the frustration, we feel the frustration and we understand this frustration, and we are not dismissing it one bit,” Dr Ceesay admitted, expressing concern. “We apologise to the public for what is happening.”
When asked if the President should personally apologise, Dr Ceesay said accountability requires it.
“Nothing is wrong with that. Because if you are accountable to the people, you have to provide certain services to the people and we fall short in providing that service, nothing is wrong with us apologising to the public to say, ‘Hey, we fell short’. Nonetheless, that has happened. It’s a national concern. We apologise. We understand the frustrations.”
Call for peaceful expression, no politicisation
The Minister urged citizens to express grievances peacefully and cautioned against politicising the crisis or resorting to violence.
“We accept people to come out and express their grievances and their anger peacefully. And we accept it for our actions or inactions,” he said. “But what is also not right is for people to politicise or use violence during these protests.”
Dr Ceesay argued that most citizens affected by the power cuts are not concerned with party politics.
“Most of the people who are affected by this electricity situation don’t know NPP, don’t know UDP, don’t know GDC, don’t care. All they want is to have a decent dignified living. Access to the most basics. Because today we live in a world where electricity is critical. Everything we do is powered by electricity. From showers, to food, to whatever - having access to information, everything is powered by electricity. All they want is electricity,” he said.
Dr Ceesay called for national unity in addressing the problem. “I think we should work collectively to make sure we deliver this. As a country, let the darkness not divide us. There’s a problem we acknowledge. And we are making sure that this undesirable situation should stop as soon as possible.”
Concluding, he said: “What we can promise the Gambian people is that we understand the frustrations and we’re appealing to the Gambian people to be patient and to understand the situation and that we are working hard to make sure that we solve this issue as soon as possible.”
The Minister’s comments come amid growing public complaints over prolonged blackouts and calls for NAWEC to publish a clear load shedding timetable.
