This is a temporal decision until they engage in extensive consultation with a view of agreeing on a rate that they would pay, he clarified.
“This is with a view to ensuring we provide a service that is more customer friendly,” he said, adding: “These are users of our ferries that are ensuring safety and security to our nation.”
He explained that the security services use what is called crossing warrants. “Crossing warrants is when they are on mission, and this enables them easy passage without charges or delays.”
The development was necessitated by the contention that the Gambia Armed Forces are exempt from paying ferry crossing charges, whilst other security officers are to pay.
“There was a Gambia Armed Forces Act and there is a particular section that allowed them to be crossing the ferry free. This section was repealed and deleted completely,” MD Jobarteh pointed out, saying: “The High Command has engaged the GPA management and the ferry services that due to the nature of their deployment, they issue warrants for mission. So it's different from the warrant that we issue for free crossing.”
He clarified: “What we have done as a responsible organization is to ensure that we do extensive consultation before certain decisions are taken. You may have heard the general manager during the weekly ferries radio talk show saying that the ticket bundles are now being sold with a view to giving incentive to people that are buying in bulk.
“So those are all things that we are doing. But at the end of the day, collecting the revenue is also essential for the sustainable operation and management of the ferries.”
Mr Jobarteh clears the air: “We are not segregating or discriminating among service security apparatus; we are engaging in a very constructive manner, and we believe that the issues will be resolved, because they are users of our ferries and we are all partners in the same issue.“
It would be recalled that the Ferry Service issued a press release recently stating that they had stopped the free ferry travel for security personnel with the exception of soldiers.
