This is not about the green ferry and how it is expected to ease the locomotion challenges of commuters across the Banjul/Barra corridor, but it’s a question of moral law.
Moral laws, we would admit, do not exist in our law books, but they are admittedly reference points in our daily discussions about our actions and inactions.
The Gambia government last Monday inaugurated in pomp and ceremony what, it described, as a green, energy-efficient and cost-effective ferry. The ferry, which one media report said, was procured at £12 million, came at a time when the Gambia government has yet to release to the public the port concession agreement.
The Gambia government ceded 80% of the profit-making Banjul Port to foreign investors, who started work last February with minimal investment. The foreign investors from Turkey brought in only seven pieces of cargo handling equipment, and were running between local banks for loans.
Instead of celebrating a new ferry, Gambians should be seized with pressing their government to revisit its concession agreement with Albayrak now re-baptized Al Port. One of the reasons, we were told, Albayrak was brought in, is to invest heavily in the port’s material, physical and digital infrastructures.
They are not investing heavily. They have not been paying their staff on time. And they stand accused of turning the port into a toxic work environment.
So, Gambians should instead see the investment in this new ferry as pound foolish, pennywise because it was made in the backdrop of the tragic ceding of an 80% share of a strategic national asset: Banjul Port.
