‘Lack of feasibility studies hinders Banjul-Barra Bridge construction’

P.S. Mendy revealed this on Monday 29 April 2024 during a meeting with the Parliamentary joint committees on Public Enterprises and Monitoring the Implementation of Government Projects.

According to P.S. Mendy, the government has been receiving many unsolicited proposals concerning the Banjul-Barra Bridge for many years from individuals, companies, and groups that have expressed interest in building the Banjul-Barra Bridge which attracts heavy financial funds.

P.S. Mendy further indicated that the ECOWAS bloc has shown interest in supporting the government to conduct feasibility studies through the ECOWAS corridor, which would link to the Abidjan-Dakar corridor. He said that they have initially explored various options but found them to be too short a distance.

“As you may be aware, some countries have corridors that span hundreds or even thousands of kilometres. However, given the relatively small width of Gambia, we wanted to explore how we could make the most out of the corridor by stretching it through the country which has led to the decision to extend the corridor from Barra, Banjul, down to Abuko, Mandinaba, Mandinari, Selete, Ziguinchor, and beyond. By doing so, we hope to maximise the benefits that the corridor can offer.”

When asked by co-chairs of the committees about what needs to be considered since looking at the length, the budget might not exceed $500 million investment or unbundle it.

P.S. Mendy responded that they were being cautious in the procurement processes since it is a major project as mistakes could be costly. Therefore, he said, they wanted to hire someone to do feasibility studies that would be useful to the government and parliament.

However, some members of the parliament are not in support of the bridge as they believe it would tamper with the navigability of the river, looking at the revitalisation of river transport to save some of the infrastructure, as they would rather go for an expensive ferry tunnel than a bridge to secure the country's income generated revenues.

Similarly, the managing director of the Gambia Port Authority (GPA), Ousman Jorbateh lamented since there are bridges all over the river, the ferries services, particularly at Trans-Gambia, which was the most valuable in their services in terms of the revenue generation potential, were lost to the Senegambia Bridge which was inaugurated in January 2019.

“So with the bridges in Fatoto, also in Basse and also Sankulekunda, most of the staff, at least about 250 or 540 staff, have not been gainfully utilised because there are no more ferries in those areas; because none of the Senegambia Bridge income gets to us, it goes directly to Central Bank of the Gambia.”