KEY POINTS
- NAWEC’s power supply deficit exceeds 50 percent, forcing load-shedding of up to 10 hours daily.
- Fish vendors at Bakoteh Market are halting operations after stored stock spoiled during blackouts.
- Tailors in Brikama are spending more on generator fuel than they are earning from their businesses.
The lights go out in the Gambia for up to 10 hours a day. And every hour they stay off, small businesses are losing money they cannot recover.
Traders, fish vendors and tailors across the Greater Banjul Area are counting mounting losses as the National Water and Electricity Company struggles with a power supply deficit exceeding 50 percent of national demand. The result is a load-shedding regime that has become the defining feature of commercial life in Banjul, Bakoteh and Brikama.
NAWEC has attributed the crisis to reduced electricity imports from Senegal’s Senelec, delayed maintenance on domestic backup plants and the rising cost of fuel. The utility says the situation should improve gradually by mid-June if regional imports resume and maintenance work stays on schedule. That timeline offers little comfort to business owners already deep in losses.
At the Bakoteh Fish Market, traders are quitting rather than risk more spoilage. “I buy fish from Tanji and sell them here in Bakoteh,” said vendor Oumie Manneh. “Five days ago, all the fish I stored in my refrigerator spoiled because of the power outage. Since then, I have not gone back to the market.”
The cost of keeping machines running
In Brikama, the tailoring sector had been bracing for a post-Tobaski surge in orders. The power cuts arrived instead. Generators now dominate the soundscape of tailoring workshops across the town as artisans burn fuel to keep their sewing machines running.
Omar Ceesay, a tailor who took on a full order book before the outages worsened, is behind on deliveries and missed his own family celebrations. “We are suffering unnecessarily, and nobody is telling us the full extent of the problem,” he said. “We accepted many orders expecting to complete them on time, but the electricity situation has pushed us well behind schedule.”
The mathematics are bleak across most commercial centres visited. Generator fuel now costs more than many traders earn in a day. Ice for fish preservation is scarce. Refrigeration is unreliable. Business owners are not asking for sympathy. They are asking for power.
A waiting game with no clear end
Fatou Jatta, a fish seller at Bakoteh, put the calculation plainly. “You cannot sell all your fish in one day. That is why we keep refrigerators. But now electricity is so unreliable that storing fish has become a risk.” She and several other vendors have suspended operations until conditions improve.
The businesses still running are doing so on fuel budgets that are shrinking their margins to nothing. Entrepreneurs across the affected areas are calling for urgent government intervention to ease operating costs. One trader put it simply: “Businesses cannot survive on promises. We need reliable electricity.”
