Gambian Minister Blames Cross-Border Water Flows and Unplanned Settlements for Banjul-Area Flooding

By Fatou Sillah

As complaints mount over flooding in the Greater Banjul Area, the country’s works minister said this week that part of the problem lies well beyond Gambia’s borders: water flowing south from Senegal’s Casamance region, compounded by drainage channels that have been blocked by years of unplanned construction.

Ebrima Sillah, who oversees transport, works, and infrastructure, made the comments in response to residents’ concerns that newly built roads in the region lack sufficient drainage. He said the issue was more complex than the roads themselves, pointing to a regional water system that funnels runoff from across the border into low-lying Gambian communities.

“Certain parts of the West Coast Region, water is coming all the way from Casamance, and then emptying into places like Sifoe and then also Tawto area, and then emptying directly into the river or at the mouth of the ocean in Tanji or in parts of Brufut,” Mr. Sillah said.

He pushed back on the suggestion that the government’s recent road projects had ignored drainage altogether, saying every new road includes some form of water channel, though the design varies according to engineering assessments.

“All the roads that we have built, we have drainage on these roads,” he said. “It depends on what type of drainage you are talking about. Some of them are deep and wide drains, but some are also shallow drains, depending on the water flow, because the hydraulic experts have done detailed studies about some of these roads.”

A bigger obstacle, he argued, is decades of haphazard development that has encroached on natural waterways meant to carry stormwater away from populated areas.

“The problem that we have in the Greater Banjul Area is that we have a lot of waterways that have been blocked by settlements because of poor planning,” Mr. Sillah said, adding that paving new roads can inadvertently worsen the problem by redirecting water that once moved slowly into channels where it now rushes through at higher speed.

“Whenever we do the new roads, you will see that water that used to flow probably quietly and smoothly will now flow very fast into these new roads,” he said.

Looking ahead, the minister said the government was preparing to study an additional 135 kilometers of roadway within the Kanifing Municipal Council, with construction tentatively set to begin in the coming months.

“We have identified about 135 kilometers of roads within the K.M.C.; very soon those studies will start,” he said. “Hopefully by September, October, those works will start.”

Mr. Sillah expressed optimism that the expanded network would ease, rather than exacerbate, the region’s flooding, by restoring more natural channels for water to disperse.

“If we are able to finalize those ones, I can assure you that the level of water concentration that we see on the roads will significantly reduce,” he said.

The minister acknowledged, however, that a comprehensive solution remains costly and dependent on outside support. He said officials were in talks with international partners to help finance a long-delayed drainage overhaul for the Greater Banjul Area, estimated to cost more than $90 million.

“We are also talking to partners to see how we can fund the Greater Banjul drainage structure, which is in excess of over $90 million so it’s not cheap money,” he said.

In the meantime, Mr. Sillah appealed for patience from residents as the government works through both road construction and drainage upgrades, which he said would proceed in tandem as funding allows.

“People have to understand that even if we are not able to do the roads, if we have the funds we will do the drainage structures across the Greater Banjul Area, and some of these problems will be minimized,” he said.