Karpowership on Wednesday handed over D89, 100 (about US$2,000) to the National Environment Agency to help it in its activities on International Coastal Cleanup Day observed on the third Saturday of every September.
Coastal Cleanup Day was established by Ocean Conservancy, an organisation that works to help protect the ocean. Every year thousands of tonnes of garbage wind up in the oceans, with 60% of that being composed of plastic material. Plastics especially last a very long time in the ocean, and are in such abundance that there are 46,000 individual pieces of plastic litter for every square mile of ocean. Plastics are very hazardous to marine life, killing more than a million birds and over 100,000 seals, turtles, and whales, and an immense number of fish in our ocean. Coastal Cleanup Day encourages people to get out to our beaches and help to limit this problem by cleaning up the garbage that has washed up on shore, and that left by visitors every day.
Speaking at the presentation ceremony at the NEA head office in Kanifing on Wednesday, Lamin Comma, programme officer for coastal and marine environment, said his institution is the custodian of environmental matters and that Karpowership is a natural partner as its electricity-generating vessel is anchored in a marine environment. He said the coastal cleanup day activities will be marked mainly along the Banjul and ‘Senegambia’ coastlines as well as at the Bakau and Tanji fish landing sites.
NEA acting director of technical services network, Dr Dawda Badgie, said The Gambia is a coastal state and that protecting the environment “is everyone’s business” as the “toxic soup” which is caused by the injection of persistent organic pollutants in the sea could be consumed by anyone. He thanked Karpowership for the donation and commended the company for its responsiveness in fulfilling all the requirements in its environmental impact assessment before beginning operations in The Gambia.
Yankuba Mamburay, the project manager of Karpowership in Banjul said the donation was part of the company’s corporate social responsibility. He explained: “Karpowership takes its CSR very seriously. We were informed by our head office in Istanbul that we do not only have to partner financially but also physically participate in the coastal cleanup day.”
He said the donation will not be a one-offery and that Karpowership will continue to support the NEA whenever it could.
Mr Mamburay said since the start of Karpowership operations in The Gambia in May 2018, the country has realised a significant positive impact from the previously erratic power supply. He said Karpowership entered a contract with The Gambia government through Nawec to provide 30MW of power for a two-year period with the possibility of an extension.
Karpowership is a member of Karadeniz Energy Group, Istanbul, Turkey. The group owns and operates more than 3,300 MW installed capacity globally. It is the only owner, operator and builder of a floating power plant fleet in the world. Since 2010, 15 powerships have been completed with total installed capacity exceeding 2,800 MW. Additional 5,000MW of powerships are either under construction or in the pipeline.
