By Makutu Manneh
Prominent economist and politician Ousman Gajigo has challenged the Barrow administration’s position that the Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du fleuve Gambie (OMVG) hydropower project will resolve The Gambia’s longstanding energy challenges, arguing that the country must simultaneously invest in domestic power generation capacity.
Speaking during an appearance on Coffee Time with Peter Gomez, Gajigo said the assumption that the OMVG project alone would meet the country’s electricity needs was mistaken. He noted that the Samba Ngallo dam — currently under construction with a projected capacity of 128 megawatts — would fall short of national demand, in part because hydropower output fluctuates seasonally.
“OMVG is a regional project shared among four countries. It will help, but external support only works if the country takes its own steps,” Gajigo said.
The economist offered broader context on the project’s origins, explaining that OMVG was originally designed with the expectation that Guinea would serve as the primary power supplier among the four member states, given its significant hydropower potential. Three dams had been planned for Guinea under that framework. However, two of those facilities were subsequently constructed by China outside the OMVG structure, yielding a combined installed capacity of nearly 800 megawatts.
Gajigo argued that the OMVG interconnection would deliver considerably greater benefits had The Gambia developed its own generation infrastructure in parallel. A stronger domestic base, he said, would allow the country to use OMVG imports to bolster grid resilience and to shift more heavily toward cheaper hydropower during periods of elevated global oil prices — reducing dependence on costly heavy fuel oil generation.
“We have been expanding electricity access across the whole country with zero investment in generation,” he said, describing the current situation as a critical policy gap that must be addressed.
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