NAWEC, The Gambia’s national utility company, held a pre-bid meeting on Monday to build “a state of the art 30MW dual fuel (HFO/GAS) facility in Kotu.” According to NAWEC officials, Tuesday’s pre-bid meeting allowed NAWEC’s management and its external consultants to interact with the pre-bidding qualified firms as well as walk them through the required final bidding processes.

NAWEC has now identified prequalified eligible independent power producers to develop, finance, construct, operate, and maintain the planned 30 megawatt dual fuel facility after launching the request for qualification. The power plant will be built in Kotu and will sell its energy to NAWEC through a long-term power purchase agreement. The successful IPP will be in charge of the power plant’s fuel supply and transportation.

The meeting with potential eligible bidders on Tuesday is a step forward in a process that has dragged on since November 2020, when NAWEC issued a Request for Qualification (RFQ) for The Gambia Power Generation Improvement Project Phase I, with a deadline of December 3rd, 11:00 PM prompt.

The project started in 2017 as part of NAWEC’s Gambia Electricity Restoration Project. According to NAWEC’s managing director Nani Juwara, his company is transitioning away from the power generation, transportation, and distribution bundle. “We are partially unbundling the generation component of our business in order to prioritize private sector investment in the generation component while focusing on transportation and distribution,” Nani Juwara explained.

The interface between NAWEC and the bidders is the African Legal Support Facility (ALSF or Facility), an organization of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group dedicated to providing legal advice and technical assistance to African countries in the structuring and negotiation of complex commercial transactions, creditor litigation, and other related sovereign transactions, handled the bidding process.

In The Gambia, the African Legal Support Facility already has a portfolio of 11 projects as a provider of advisory services in Power PPP, Infrastructure and PPPs, Sovereign Debt, and Oil and Gas.