By Mustapha Jarju
The Gambia Port Authority (GPA) on Wednesday 8th March 2023 joined the rest of the world in commemoration of International Women’s Day, held in Banjul.
GPA, for the first time commemorated the day to encourage and recognise the efforts of its female staff under the theme “innovation and technology for gender equality”.
In his welcoming remark on behalf of the GPA Board of Directors, Mbye Jeng, a staffer said the contribution of women is unexceptional which he said motivated the board to allow women to serve the entire leadership at GPA.
He added that the board has strongly emphasised that there is equal opportunity for both men and women in the delivery of service, saying any benefit that men would be given women should not be left behind.
“If you look at the hierarchy of the Gambia Ports Authority and women holding higher positions are almost equal and even though there are chances given to women to go for higher education, equivalent to men benefit in the GPA,” he said.
Yama Bojang the vice president of GPA Staff Association opined that the women effort in development should be a broad area for specialisation by encouraging both technology and digital knowledge as accorded to the male.
“We put it in mind that we are not in any way competing with them (men), and we recognise and appreciate the efforts of the women who are still doing good work in filling the gender equality gap through transformative innovative and social and economic settings.”
On her part GPA Deputy Director of Internal Audit Sainabou M Ceesay called on her fellow women to embrace technology and work collaboratively to identify barriers to make advancement in innovation, technology and entrepreneurship.