Gambia govt apologises over energy outage at Banjul airport
Gambia’s Minister of Information, Dr. Ismaila Ceesay, has issued a public apology to passengers of SN Brussels following an airport energy outage that led to 2 flights being diverted to Dakar on Saturday.
However, he strongly rejected what he described as “false” claims from critics, defending the federal government’s actions and offering readability on the incident.
The disruption occurred when Banjul’s airport was plunged into darkness after an influence lower, forcing the flights to be rerouted.
The incident sparked outrage on social media, with many expressing concern in regards to the state of the nation’s electrical energy provide, which has confronted ongoing challenges beneath the administration of the National Water and Electricity Company (NAWEC).
Speaking on Coffee Time, Dr. Ceesay apologised to affected passengers, acknowledging the inconvenience brought on.
“Our apology to those passengers who felt inconvenienced. No passenger would want to experience this, particularly on a long-distance flight, looking forward to meeting their families,” he mentioned.
However, the minister pushed again towards misinformation circulating on-line, together with claims that the ability outage had prevented the planes from touchdown. “That’s not the fact. It’s far from the truth,” Dr. Ceesay mentioned.
“NAWEC was planning scheduled maintenance as part of the ongoing effort to modernise the grid. Development comes with disruptions, and sometimes, for safety reasons, NAWEC has to temporarily switch off power lines.”
Dr. Ceesay defined that though the airport had been operating on backup energy all through the day, the scenario turned difficult round 5-6 pm, when NAWEC restored energy however skilled instability.
This led to the technical problem of isolating NAWEC’s unstable energy from the backup system simply as the 2 flights have been getting ready to land. “The power was flickering on and off,” he famous, attributing the disruption to a technical glitch reasonably than a systemic failure.
He additionally pointed to comparable incidents world wide as a comparability, referencing a serious energy outage at Manchester Airport in June, which affected 90,000 passengers, and one other incident within the UK final 12 months that led to the cancellation of 1,500 flights.
“These things happen worldwide, even in the most developed countries,” Dr. Ceesay mentioned. “To claim that The Gambia is a failed state because it cannot provide consistent electricity for flights is an exaggeration.”
By Adama Makasuba
Post Views: 10
