By: Momodou Justice Darboe
The Managing Director of the Gambia Ports Authority (GPA), Mr. Ousman Jobateh, has acknowledged that the signing of a Performance Contract between the Government of the Gambia and the GPA, integration of IT systems in port processes, the invocation of a new deep sea port alternative to Banjul Port and the uptick in volume of transaction at the port in the last three months of last year include some of the major transformations that the port experienced in 2023.
Mr. Jobarteh made this acknowledgment in a press conference on Friday.
“One of the major transformations that the port experienced in 2023 was the signing of a new Performance Contract with the government. Actually, not new because it was restituted. The last time we had a performance contract with the government was in 1993. So, in February this year, we signed a new performance contract, which governs the relationship between the government and the institution. The Performance Contract has established some targets, which the institution has to achieve financially and in terms of qualitative targets. And, this set the tone to try to monitor the enterprise’s performance,” he explained.
The GPA boss described the introduction of IT systems in the port processes in 2023 as another major transformation.
“Another major event that has happened this year [2023] in terms of governance environment is that GPA was able to institute some new IT systems in our business processes all to re-engineer the systems in place and reduce human interference as much as possible to bring about efficiency, accountability, and transparency in the processes. These were done with in-house resources with the anticipation of a wider digitalization project for the port,” said Mr. Jobarteh.
He admitted though that the port was constrained in terms of capacity.
“With the advent of the new government, we have realized that business at the port, except for the COVID period, has grown by between 7% to 12% to 18%, in terms of the volume of cargo we handle at the port. When we looked at the figures, we realized that there were new entrants in the market and our transit business alone has grown more than 102% within the three years after 2017. When we looked at the figures, we thought that we needed to address this capacity constraint, and what it has led to is the commissioning of a new masterplan,” Mr. Jobartehexplained.
He further explained that the new master plan was prepared by a Netherlands-based consulting firm.
“And it [firm] did a demand forecast for the port from 2019-2038 and they came with the primary recommendation that business has outgrown the facility in terms of the port capacity and if no investment is realized by 2023, the port would stand the threat of losing business to neighboring countries and this is a fact that we had experienced during the past few years,” he added.
The GPA boss explained that the master plan looked at three main components that require immediate intervention.
“One of them is to expand or extend the existing jetty, where we can accommodate ships because currently, the port has a facility to handle two container ships simultaneously, and the project has identified the need to expand this jetty by a further 200m so that we can take three ships at a time. The second component was to expand the container terminal within the contiguous zone of the port and the third component was to invest in digitalization,” explained Mr. Jobarteh.
He expressed optimism that The Gambia’s potential to serve the local and regional markets would be enhanced if the deepseaport infrastructure improvement and digitalization projects crystallize.
“Because what we have realized is also that about 8% of goods that come into our customs zone find their way to third countries by way of transit, cross-border and re-export trade. So, Banjul is a natural link to third markets in neighboring countries thus the need to now improve the efficiency of the port as a strategic national asset,” he highlighted.
The GPA MD reported that due to the congestion-induced cargo diversion from Banjul Port to the neighboring ports, there was a lull in traffic at the port in 2021 and 2022. The impact of the diversion, he went on, has led to a 3% slump in traffic in 2022.
“But in 2022 also when we realized that there was an immediate need to expand the capacity, the port resorted to a private property; Bund Road Inland Container Depot. Most of the returning empty containers are now handled at that facility. It has freed the port of the most valuable space to handle the traffic,” said Mr. Jobarteh. He explained that the container depot has improved sift productivity and turnaround time.
“Prior to 2022, ships were waiting at anchorage for an average of 14 to 17 days because of congestion. But since we had access to the facility and evacuated a lot of empty containers, it brought about increased productivity at the sift side meaning there is higher output and it resulted in less congestion and lower ship waiting time. So, by October [2022] and the early part of this year [2023], the waiting time had reduced from 14 days to less than five days and as we speak, ships come straight to the berth because the waiting time has also drastically reduced again,” the GPA boss acknowledged.
To Be Continued…