KIANG: Lights Switched-on Previously Alienated Region of The Gambia

By Ebrima Bah

President Adama Barrow punched the switch which enrolled the communities of Kiang to the services of the National Water and Electricity Company, NAWEC.

The gesture to send away darkness in the region is so symbolic that it is coded with a military linguistic register, “Operation Lampolmala” meaning switch-on the lights.

In the voice of the president, the project, which targeted “underserved communities in the country”, is both government’s sincerity to its promise and devotion to the National Development Plan (NDP).

With sub-stations in Jarra Soma in the Lower River Region and Brikama in West Coast Region under the Gambia River Basin Development Organisation, OMVG, the project operates within policies of the African Development Bank (ADB) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Four member countries, The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea and Guinea Bissau will draw energy from a capacity of 368 megawatts from different dams in West Africa.

This southern area of the River Gambia has always lived the life of an opposition in a typical third world county. Consequently, Kiang constitute more than twenty thousand people under the poverty line out of a total number of nearly forty thousand. This manifests over forty percent severity of the poverty in the area, according to the 2015/16 Integrated Household Survey by the Gambia Bureau of Statistics.

ALIENATED REGION 

People in Kiang and their communities were alienated by the former government in terms of development because they were known to be an opposition stronghold.

In fact, Kiang West was the only constituency where the former ruling government under Yahya Jammeh lost to the opposition in the 2006 presidential election, The Dailynews Newspaper reported during the 2011 presidential election.

Voting two opposition National Assembly Members in Kiang West and Kiang Central at the time appeared to have added salt to injury. The former president reacted with fury and vowed to deny these choice-oriented people [all] essential developments referring to the people as “negative” and “ungrateful” of his goodwill gestures.

Such a situation is what Political Science Lecturer of the University of the Gambia, Essa Njie, referred to as “transactional politics”, which is based on reward or punishment according to loyalty status of a given population to its leadership.

“It is also called regional politics, where regions are neglected because they do not vote for the incumbent president,” Njie said, in view of the fact that Kiang has always been an opposition stronghold since independence. “I think they are one of the most consistent constituencies when it comes to loyalty to opposition parties.”

The current president, Adama Barrow, took advantage of the exclusion of Kiang from development rights to secure their undivided support during the campaign to end the 22-year rule of the exiled former president. He vowed to end all the development draughts to pave way for better livelihood in health, education and agriculture for the region.

Addressing the people of Kiang on November 28, the president stressed that the fight for which the people of the area have exerted on demand for social justice had yielded fruits with his victory as a leader of a coalition of seven political parties in 2016.

‘Lampolmala’, in Barrow’s view was an occasion in a series signifying that the new government rejects discrimination in the distribution of development among regions, their districts and communities.

This Electricity Expansion Project was executed at a cost of over Twenty-two Million US Dollars (US$22.5 Million) in a drive towards achieving universal access to electricity in The Gambia by 2025.

The implementation of this first phase started in 2017 covering seventy-seven communities, fourteen of which are in Kiang, and sixty-three in the West Coast Region.

During the testing stages, children danced the entire period for witnessing a new experience in their lives.

Even “I would have danced had the crowd not been so large” the Chief of Kiang Central District, Demba L. Sanyang jokingly said during his speech at the inauguration of the electrification project.

It was a breakthrough as the people had lost hope and probably managed to build resistance from any form of expectation even with the early signs of hope from the new government.

That Kiang will be electrified even before few other places within the neighbouring districts of Jarra in the Lower River Region or few other places closer to the Greater Banjul Areas remained a dream. The Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Fafa Sanyang, took notice of the “pessimism of the people”.

“When the poles were erected, there were murmuring [that it might be a political trick] but we were focused; during the wiring, the murmuring continued but we maintained focus on the job until today when we are here to launch the success of a long journey,” he said.

AT WHAT COST?

As Kiang celebrate infrastructural development, individual households are stretching muscles to keep heads above water. The immediate minimum cost in the process concerns the installation of a cash power metre at five thousand dalasi (GMD5, 000).

At an average one hundred households going for the purchase of the power metre in each of the fourteen villages in Kiang, the National Water and Electricity Company is sure to collect a minimum revenue of seven million dalasi (GMD 7, 000, 000) in the last quarter of 2020. The purchase of cash power on daily basis afterwards by every household will form government’s recurrent income.

This resounds the argument of certain entrepreneurs that what is known as development is chiefly extended to the poor when government needs money to pay for its expenses, hence, the launching ‘switch’ for Kiang by the president.

Individual households get to budget for the procurement of wiring materials and workmanship ahead of what would be routine cash power purchasing.

Having a few neighbours switching on the bulbs following the launch of the “Operation Lampolmala” in Kiang Kwinella, Pa Manga, a household head, said his only son on formal employment paid for the wiring of three-line buildings in his compound.

“We were able to buy the cash power metre immediately when the NAWEC staff came over and that took away all what we had at the time,” he said, estimating an overall budget of “twenty thousand dalasi (GMD 20, 000)” he had to raise in three months.

An investment of this magnitude on things other than food, health or education by members of the poorest communities in the country justifies how unfavourable the situation is with the coming of the power infrastructure, according to Mr Njie.

“Why would it be considered a favour when they have been paying taxes?” the political Science Lecturer asked, noting that “despite being marginalised for far too long, each of them paid for their metres and they will have to buy cash power.”

However, as the Minister of Petroleum and Energy explained, the benefits in rural electrification is worth the cost. According to Fafa Sanyang, what is invested is in appreciation to the fact that electricity empowers better living conditions for the people with reference to areas such as education, health, and communication.

For 55 years of independence, the communities of Kiang knew nothing about light apart from the rays of the sun during the day, and the beam of light from the moon at night – when candles, kerosine lamps and firewood are lit to brighten houses and homes.

But as the region graduates from “dark nights”, the Nioro Jattaba – Sankandi Upper and Senior Secondary School is laying down plans to feature electricity into its 2021 budget. “Despite the benefits of electricity to teaching and learning, it also comes with cost and challenges,” the Principal, Numo T.F. Saidykhan, said in an interview with Mansa Banko Online.

He said plans for the year ending did not cover cost for the required installation of power facilities in the school’s infrastructure. “It is expensive, considering the need to wire about five blocks including classrooms, offices and staff quarters. Because current utility charges could not take care of everything, the issue of utilities will be reviewed and considered for next year,” Saidykahn said.

According to the school’s plan, the e-learning centre which had been on a limited solar power would henceforth be upgraded to facilitate the teaching and learning process. Afterwards, the administration is expected manage all preparations for examination instead of outsourcing the typing and printing of scripts to centres in the urban areas.

With this new development in the rural areas, sustainability in the flow of power will be a tough experiment until such a time the energy could be used to pay for its cost. At this juncture, concerns revolve around the initiation of small enterprises such as the processing of drinks for a very small market.

Major business ventures in the form of workshops and the use of heavy machines are very unlikely to exist during the first half of next year mainly due to requirement of strong investment muscles.

Meanwhile, these rural poor will frustrate their petty trading to fulfil the cash power obligation at the expense of school fees or medical bills. Or they will have to depend on their sons and daughters who are working in urban areas and in the diaspora to help foot the electricity bills by sending remittances back home.

• Featured image by Ebrima Bah

The author, Ebrima Bah, is a Multimedia Freelance Journalist based in Banjul, The Gambia.