By Tabora Bojang
Minister of Works, Transport and Infrastructure Ebrima Sillah said the government has cautioned Turkish investor’s Albayrak who are managing the port of Banjul that it would not tolerate delays in the payment of staff working at the ports because the concession was signed to among others improve port efficiency, reduce congestion and advance staff welfare.
Sillah’s remarks come in the wake of public outrage following the delay in the payment of the port staff who did not receive their February salaries until 4th March.
The staff protested by demanding explanations over the salary delay and further withdrew all overtime services. Speaking on ‘For The People By The People’ show, Sillah said the government is treating these staff complaints with a “great concern”.
Sillah explained: “When it happened, I immediately called both the managing director of Gambia Ports Authority and the concessionaire [Alport] to inquire why staff February salaries were delayed up to the 4th of March because the policy in this country is that salaries should be paid not later than 25th day of the month. The explanation given to me was that the monies were deposited with the local bank and the bank was late to remit it to staff accounts. That to me is a very serious excuse. And we would not like to see that happen again. We have already made that very clear to the concessionaire.”
He added: “Since last week when this [salary delay] matter was brought to my attention, it has been a restless week because we care about the welfare of our people in this country. I can assure you we will not allow a repeat of this again and that crucial lessons have been learnt.”
Sillah however noted that significant improvements were made since the concessionaire took over the ports stating that vessels that previously waited for about 21 days before berth now spend less than 24 hours.
According to Minister Sillah, managing concessions anywhere in the world requires “robustness, thoroughness and being up-to-date” with issues, adding that monitoring mechanisms were put in place to keep the contract under check.
The minister also dismissed suggestions that the government did not do a proper due diligence on Albayrak before issuing them the contract which is to run for 30 years.
He said the government did their homework well and that Albayrak is not a small name in the port ecosystem as they operate ports in Equatorial-Guinea, Somali, Djibouti, Guinea, Turkey and elsewhere.
Sillah also contended that GPA Managing Director Ousman Jobarteh was misquoted when he reportedly said the government was renegotiating the contract with Albayrak.
He said Jobarteh was simply implying that some of the conditions precedent before the concession becomes effective were not fulfilled which triggered discussions on those timelines that the government had missed.
