18/04/2018
GPA Inks Over £ 1M Dredging Contract
By: Momodou Torp
The Gambia Sea transport giants, Gambia Port Authority GPA have signed over £1 million river dredging contract with DEME Dredging International Company from Denmark recently.
It’s a common knowledge that the main port in the Banjul-Barra vessel landing sites has a low dept which is not sufficient for the anchoring of some vessels as a result it triggers difficulties in ship landings in most circumstances.
Mr. Abdoulie Tambedou, Managing Director GPA,said the dredging contract that costs the government over 1 million euro is intended to remove 100, 000 cubic meters of sands and silk dip under the water so as to archive deeper draft for vessels to be able to ply the river well.
we are all aware of the difficult circumstances that that the authority has been encountering since the arrival of the new ferry Kunta Kinteh, MD Tambedou said.
The project is very important as they are to remove100, 000 cubic meters of sands and silk to the tune of over a Million euro which is to be finance by the GPA. According to him, the contract is under the supervision consultant of NIRAS from Denmark who have been supportive to the GPA since in the 80s and early 90s.
Mr. Tambedou hopes that the project will be delivered well in the end of June and meet July 2018.
For his part, the consultant Jesper Harder, NIRAS Director Ports and Marine boss welcomes the ceremony and thanks the GPA official anchoring the contract.
NIRAS is located in lost of the West African countries whereas officials of the said company said Gambia was mission in the course of their working exercise but glad that this time around the country is lucky to enter in to a new contract with NIRAS as the beginning of a long business relationship.
Captain Kulay Manneh, Harbour Master GPA thanks the company officials anchoring the contract for accepting the offer, stressing that that the Banjul ports is influenced by sea tides which goes with sediments which has resulted in a lot of in siltation over the years which has reduced the siltation and sedimentations along the river wharfs.
As a result of this, it restricted the movements of the ferries and the ships coming to Banjul Port which has an impact of a cost of a maritime nation that has taken place in the Banjul sea site, noting that this has limited into a flow of tied that is the vessels can only bath at high water, the Harbour master explains.
He said the dredging will help in the improvement of the ship run around time which he said means improvement in the GPAs productivity as it will also reduce the ship cost as well as an impact to the cost of living as the said cost he said is transferred to cost of commodity.
According to the Harbour star, the more ships spend in a landing site the more cost it becomes on the ships which will be as well transferred to cost of article and subsequently on to the consumers, "so with this dredging exercise contracted, it will help in reducing the time ships spend at anchoring."
