The meeting followed a project sites visit.
It could be recalled that in April last year, Immoland Sarl Company successfully won a contract by the OIC Gambia Secretariat to build a 5-star hotel worth 100 million US Dollars and equivalent of about 5 billion Gambian Dalasis in Bijilo. This is the hotel which is intended to be used to accommodate the guests of the OIC Summit in 2022. It is in the light of this project that a meeting and project site visit was conducted yesterday.
“We are very elated that having signed the contract, we have in The Gambia today a distinguished party of professionals from our sister Republic of South Africa and our brotherly nation of Turkey, as well as from Senegal. We are delighted, because today marks a very significant day in our journey towards the realisation of the 5-star hotel for the OIC summit. This hotel is long overdue. We would very much appreciate all the efforts you can bring to make sure that we accelerate it. Of course, not at the expense of quality, but accelerate the process of delivering on this promise. This is a huge promise not only to Gambia. It is a promise on behalf of 57 countries worldwide,” disclosed Yankuba Dibba, head of the OIC Gambia Secretariat.
According to Nfally Fadera, head of brands and communications of the OIC Gambia,” the OIC Summit is the second largest intergovernmental organisation after the United Nations and as part of our preparations, our office was setup and mandated with three tasks, and one of them is to mobilise resources to implement development and infrastructural projects. Secondly, to implement infrastructure and development projects in preparations for the summit, and the third one is to manage the event planning and organising of the summit itself.”
“So, it is part of that effort that our office came up with a lot of strategic projects aimed at making sure we can have a successful summit, but also use those development projects to benefit Gambians in the long run, even after the summit is done. One of such projects is the hotel we are about to talk about today,”
He added that they are of the view that the 5-star hotel would be a very good point of reception for guests next year, but at the same time, it would help in terms of the desire to position the country as a leading destination of conference tourism, of providing luxury accommodation for guest that are seeking that kind of leisure and attraction.”
“Our journey on this particular project started well over a year ago. It was February last year when we sent out requests for proposals and we got a number of companies interested. At the end of the day, Immoland Sarl emerged the most successful or the most responsive company. There has been a lot of administrative backward and forward in terms of getting things in place.”
However, no date is set yet for the actual commencement of the project, but it is assured that it will soon commence.
