By Olimatou Coker & Fatou Bojang
Transport Minister Ebrima Sillah has announced that feasibility studies have already started to construct the Banjul-Barra bridge as part of the Abidjan-Lagos-Dakar corridor.
Ebrima Sillah made these remarks yesterday during the contract signing of two new ferries by the government of the Gambia and the Gambia Ports Authority worth over $26 million.
The design and construction of the ferries was awarded to Damen Shipyard.
“The long term strategy of The Gambia is to bridge Banjul-Barra and I am happy to announce that the feasibility studies have started. This is an ECOWAS project which is part of the Lagos-Abidjan-Dakar corridor project which The Gambia is part of. Initially, ECOWAS wanted to do the corridor from Amdalai going all the way to Sita Nunku then Siliti but looking at the strategic importance of the Banjul-Barra route, we thought it’s necessary because considering the small size of our country, we have other bigger countries like Mali that are benefitting from about 100 up to 1000km of the road and for us, from one end of The Gambia to another, it is not more than 80km,” he said.
