By Ramatoulie Jawo
The Director General of the Public Utility Regulation Authority (PURA), Yusupha M. Jobe, has criticized the National Water and Electricity Company (NAWEC) for its performance, saying that it needs to do a lot to improve.
Jobe made the remarks while appearing before the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Public Accounts on Thursday to review and consider PURA’s activity reports and financial statements for 2021.
“Mr. Chairman, with your permission I don’t want to be apologetic for NAWEC, but I think they have a lot that they need to do, to get their house in order, and we have been very lenient in supporting them even with the regulatory fees that we charge them is not still at the level it should be under the PURA regulations. But NAWEC has been dysfunctional, and they have been putting the cart before the horse.
“A lot of times they enter into an arrangement before they prepare themselves to take care of those arrangements. That is what happened with the SENELEC. The power surge and supply from Senegal defer to what we have here and their transformers and systems could not accommodate us,” he said.
Mr. Jobe emphasized that NAWEC’s systems are outdated and require replacement. Due to this, if there is an outage in one area, NAWEC must shut down 10-20 other areas in order to pinpoint the source of the problem. He explained that they are unable to do this because their system lacks the ability to identify the fault location.
“So NAWEC really needs to be taken to task, and we should be at the forefront as the regulatory body. Their supply is not an issue, the issue is their distribution. The situation of short term issues; pipe bust will take them 48 hours before they fix it. I cannot understand that. It shouldn’t happen in this day and age,” he said.
He informed the committee that addressing NAWEC’s issues requires joint efforts from both the regulatory body and the government to ensure they meet the anticipated outcomes.
Additionally, the committee asked PURA to provide a comprehensive summary of NAWEC, which would serve as a guiding reference for their forthcoming report.
In the meantime, FPAC approved the reports following thorough examination and scrutiny of the provided information.