Talib Bensouda Says Coalition 2026 Would Privatize NAWEC

By Fatou Sillah

Coalition 2026 presidential candidate Talib Ahmed Bensouda said Sunday that his administration would liberalize The Gambia’s electricity sector and sell the National Water and Electricity Company, NAWEC, to private investors if he wins the December presidential election.

Speaking at the Coalition 2026 Unity Rally at Brikama SSP, Bensouda presented private-sector participation as a central part of his plan to address the country’s persistent electricity problems, while sharply criticizing President Adama Barrow’s record on power generation and supply.

“Coalition 2026, under the leadership of President Talib Ahmed Bensouda, will liberalize NAWEC, sell it, and allow the private sector to take over,” Bensouda said.

He argued that the Barrow administration had been given ample time to reform the electricity sector since taking office in 2017 but had failed to provide a lasting solution. He accused the president of repeatedly extending the timeline for delivering promised reforms, from three years to five and, eventually, 10 years.

Bensouda said frequent power outages were taking a toll on businesses, households, and health facilities, and he sought to make the electricity crisis a defining issue in his campaign against the incumbent.

“Since 2017, President Barrow cannot fix our electricity problem; that is why I am naming him ‘Blackout Barrow,’” Bensouda said. “Many people are dying in hospitals because of the electricity crisis; many businesses are not doing well because of lack of electricity.”

He also criticized the government’s reliance on electricity imports from neighboring countries. Bensouda said Barrow had sought additional power from Senegal and later Guinea, arguing that both countries face their own electricity challenges.

For Bensouda, those efforts showed the government had exhausted its options for resolving the country’s power shortages and needed a fundamentally different approach.

Beyond electricity, Bensouda broadened his criticism of the Barrow administration, blaming it for what he described as failures in public safety and governance. He cited killings in the country; the deaths of young Gambians attempting irregular migration by sea; and the deaths of children linked to the acute kidney injury, or AKI, outbreak.

The remarks came as Bensouda and Coalition 2026 seek to draw a contrast with Barrow’s record ahead of the presidential election, with electricity and the cost of unreliable power emerging as prominent campaign issues.