By Aisha Tamba
Work on the much anticipated 20 new roads to be built under the OIC project will start simultaneously, according to information gathered by The Standard during a recent tour of project sites by members of the Local Organising Committee of the Banjul 2022 summit.
The LOC conducted a tour of some of the roads with the OIC Gambia officials and met residents who live near them.
According to the LOC, the roads would be a standard 7-meter road fitted with a modern drainage system and streetlights. The combined length of the 20 roads is 50km and the projects would be given to different contractors with works to start in March 2021.
Yankuba Dibba, CEO OIC Gambia, said: ”As an oversight body, it is our responsibility to see how the project progresses. This is why at the request of the LOC, we are here today to show them around from project 1 to 20, so that they have an appropriation of the kind of road network that we are having and at what stage the work is. We have a very good and pleasing timeline for the consultant and by next week Wednesday, we will have the plenary design completed. By the end of this month, we will have a complete consultancy report which includes pre-tender and tender documents.”
The OIC Gambia boss revealed that the roads will be tendered for construction in early January and work will commence in March.
The project consultant, Imed Gharbi highlighted that the site surveys and laboratory analysis are completed and they are now compiling the ground information to provide the design.
He explained that the design is taking a little bit of time, “because in the urban area, we have to take care of a specific character for each section of the road”.
He said the total budget is 50 million dollars, stating that the design is expected to be completed by the end of this year and the process shall be launched in March. He said the work will be completed within 12 months.
Binta Jammeh, the chairperson of the LOC, explained the importance of the visit: “As a local organising committee, we consulted with the OIC Secretariat to come out and see for ourselves, as they say. Aeeing is believing; so that we see the progress of the road to push forward and work with the Secretarial to complete the project before 2022.”
