By Buba Gagigo
President Adama Barrow, during an extensive interview with Star TV, has revealed that his government is planning to build a new port in Sanyang to reduce congestion in the Capital city of Banjul.
“We are thinking of building a new world standard port that will have a zero turn around time. You will just come and offload. Right now, that’s our plan. We are discussing the modalities, and the plan is, if we are ready to go with the new port, we will be able to build it in fifteen months. But for the consultation and everything, technicalities, surveys, and everything will take them about six months. But we can build it in one and half years. We planned to build it in Sanyang, That will help reduce the congestion in the Capital and the port will have parking for trucks. If we have the port, it will be efficient,” president Adama Barrow told Star TV last Friday.
The Gambian president also revealed that his government is making efforts to expand the Port in Banjul;
“We are making efforts to expand our Port in Banjul because we have difficulties there also. When ships arrive they wait for a long time and if that happens they charge for demurrage. They add the demurrage to their price. But we are trying to expand the Port, and we have signed another thing which will really help the port and help in pricing, and that is container tracking. That will help people know all the information about the ship, and before it arrives here you already know the price you are supposed to pay,” the president revealed.
Also, among the plans for the port in Banjul, the president said is that, his government has already signed ‘Single Window’, which he says will help to ease the process at the Port;
“That (Single Window) will help people to pay all they supposed to pay at one place. That will make it very easy because the process will be very fast. Before your goods arrive, you will be able to pay for everything. You will just come and take your goods, that will help to avoid congestion at the Port. If we address the congestion, that will address the price a lot,” the president said.