The SMJ Company, which pitched its tent in The Gambia 5 years ago, started its actual operation 3 years back with the aim of helping solve the environmental disaster that has taken place in the country.
The initiative was explained to journalists by the management of the SMJ Company during a day-long site visit held on Thursday to inform the public about SMJ’s planned activities and objective of land reclamation to restore the coastal lands and environmental bliss of the Kombo South coastal side.
The objectives of the company include to provide sand for construction and to retrieve all destroyed coastal areas which cover a 16km to 17km land along the Kombo South coastal communities.
The recovery of the destroyed quarry sites, which has badly affected the coastal sites of the communities of Batokunku, Tujereng, Sanyang, Gunjur and Kartong, would be done through SMJs Sea dredging initiatives to restore effective land utilisation in the affected communities.
According to Banka Manneh, SMJ’s Public Relations Manager, “the gravity of the destruction of these areas by sand mining has long forced women gardeners to evacuate their gardens, which has badly affected their farming activities.”
He stated: “It is currently impossible for these lands to be used for any purpose, except it is reclaimed though effective sea dredging.”
The new project, which is the first of its kind in The Gambia, is geared towards fully addressing the destruction caused by coastal sand quarries over the years, in their pursuit of sand for construction.
Manneh said assuredly: “The deep trenches and coastal destruction left by years of mining will be refilled and rehabilitated through land reclamation from the sea.”
He elaborated: “SMJ has procured a new ocean dredger, currently moored at Denton Bridge, for the sole purpose of the coastal land reclamation project. Consultations and discussions are ongoing with the Government of The Gambia for a formal agreement and contract to start the project.”
He said their facilities include a new sand washing machine, which is “first of its kind in The Gambia”.
SMJ Company has secured an ocean dredger to reclaim all the destroyed coastal communities of Batokunku, Tujereng, Sanyang, Gunjur and Kartong coast sites, he stated, adding that “SMJ is the first dredging company that started dredging sand for commercial construction” in The Gambia.
For his part, Alhaji Momodou (Papa) Samateh, managing director at Sino Majilak Jalbak, emphasised that “there is a huge deposit of sand around the oyster creek at the Denton Bridge and Banjul.
Mr Samateh said that a feasibility report has been put together from the coastal protection study in December 2000 done by Haskoning B.V. Consulting engineers and architects, of the Netherlands, for the Gambia government.
He said the study was carried out to determine the causes of beach erosion and sedimentation along the coastline, including sedimentation near the ferry terminal at Barra.
The report recommended protective measures to mitigate the problem, he stated, pointing out that the summary of the conclusion of the report states that along the coast, between the oyster creek, erosion is the result of the local accumulation of sand in the spit at tall point behind the GGC and Wander garden, a 3.5 coastal protection study.
He also said the report states that the sand spit accumulates between 60,000 and 80,000m3 per year. Thus, he revealed that SMJ Company also secured sand washing and screening machines among other equipment for the OIC project. This, he said, came about when the OIC had some issues of sand for their ongoing road construction.
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