By: Momodou Justice Darboe
The Manager of Alport, Cem Ozturk, has painted an optimistic outlook for the Banjul Port, promising that the country’s only seaport will witness an enhanced operational efficiency in six months’ time.
Last month, Alport assumed port operations as per the concession agreement that it signed with the Government of The Gambia and the GPA to run the Banjul Port for 30 years.
For many years now, the Banjul Port has been struggling to regain its former glory as one of the most competitive ports in the West Africa sub-region.
The lack of inadequate investment in the port, physical space constraint and absence of robust IT infrastructure were some of the factors that have been eroding the efficiency gains of the Banjul Port over the past years, leading to cargo diversion and increased cost of doing business at the port.
During a media tour of the ongoing port improvement projects on Saturday, the Alport manager indicated that Banjul Port is about to reclaim its lost glory as one of the sub-region’s most competitive ports.
“We are here in the country for almost eight months and from the first day, we started some improvements. We demolished the Half Die area [contiguous zone of the port], which is 15,000sqm. We also demolished the old Muslim High School building immediately…15,000sqm demolished in 10 days and we are creating new spaces because there is a great congestion inside the port,” Mr. Cem told reporters.
“We already started our investment. Probably six months later, we will also bring our IT infrastructure. Then, everything will start to change in six months. We already ordered several different machineries; stalkers, spreaders, trailers, dozers, trucks, and we are expecting them almost in two months. We have ordered different materials for bulk cargo and container cargo for loading and for unloading. We already started working with government institutions such as the GRA and GMA,” he added.
The Alport manager explained that the vessel waiting time has significantly reduced since Alport assumed the operations of the port in January.
“We are in the port just monitoring, just requesting something from the existing employees. For example, last year in January, the total number of vessels handled inside the port was eight but today, we handled 11. Again, in increasing the number of vessels, we also increased the number of discharged and loaded and unloaded container and tonnage of the bulk cargo. We already started improving the effectiveness and maybe, you will see in six months,” said Mr. Cem.
The Gambia government and Albayrak consortium now referred to as Alport entered a port concession negotiation with the Gambia government in 2023 and the outcome of this agreement is the transfer of 80% the ownership of the port to the consortium. The Alport manager said this agreement is in the best interest of Gambians.
“Some amount of the revenue will directly go to the investment account for the Sanyang deep seaport. Everything will stay in the country. Of course, we are here to increase the productivity [of the port] and when productivity raises up, everybody will earn in the country. Today, we are starting with 1000 people, coming from GPA. Probably in two years’ time, you will see 2000 people around because we are here for the people of The Gambia,” he stated, explaining that it’s clearly spelt out in the concessionary agreement that all the GPA staff members, who will be transferred to Alport, will keep all their rights, all their salaries, pensions schemes and all other conditions.
