What Is The Fate of Gambia Ports Authority?

Few weeks ago President Jammeh announced that his office was taking over the oversight of the management of the Gambia Ports Authority, GPA. This is the first time government, not to talk of the Office of the President, is taking over the state-owned enterprise which has a share capital of 16.3 million Dalasi. It was with the 1972 Ports Act that government created the GPA. Before this, the authority’s facilities were under the control of the now defunct Marine Department. Included in these facilities is the Banjul port which handles up to 93% of the Gambia's total foreign trade in weight and volume terms. The seaport stands at the very core of the Trade Gateway Project which is intended to enable The Gambia to consolidate its re-export prowess and establish itself as a globally competitive export and processing center, in accord with official dreams formulated in Vision 2020. The GPA is charged with administering the docks at Banjul port by the Ports Act to operate the ports of the Gambia on a commercial basis. It was given the mandate to manage and provide all necessary marine and harbor facilities, cargo handling equipment and storage as well as to regulate, enhance and to carry out regular maintenance of the complex.

 
The port is mostly used for loading and offloading the cargo of container ships, tankers, role-on / role-off and ocean going cargo vessels. It also provides a maritime base for the Gambian National Navy because of its ideal position at the mouth of the river. Back in 2001, when it became evident that the ruined Gambia Public Transport Corporation, GPTC, was not up to the challenge of manning the country’s ferry services, that management of the nine ferry lines were transferred to the GPA.  
Since the inception of the GPA in 1972, the development and expansion of the port of Banjul has been held high on the agenda of official government priorities and spread out in various stages of implementation. In 1972, there was only one 122 meter jetty, a 102m Inside Back with two warehouses and 10 large container cargo. Towards the end of the decade and into the 1980s the growth in international trade and the emergence of the country as an important importer for eventual re-exportation to other countries of the sub-region meant the port required more open storage cargos as opposed to closed storage. The construction of an extra jetty was carried out which was 123m in length and 30m wide. In 1995 the expansion of cargo and container traffic necessitated more expansion. Then there was an urgent need for dedicated roll-on roll-off facilities and further expansion of one of the jetties (123m) by an extra 177 m. Starting from last year, 2009, the GPA embarked upon the latest phase of its expansion by demolishing blocks of adjacent residential areas to free up more space for expansion. 

But ironically enough, this stage of the expansion comes at a time of drastic decline in cargo throughput, diminishing turnover and falls in both operative and after-tax net profits. Though turnover decreased only slightly from D376 million in 2007 to D373 million in 2008, net profit plunged by 51% from D77 million to D38 million under the same period. From 2006 to 2007, operating profit had plunged D125.25 million to only D20 million for 2007, according to the budget speech delivered by Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Abdou Kolley about a month ago. In brief, the Gambia Ports Authority is in a precarious financial situation, following the footsteps of other public enterprises in the brink of bankruptcy. Is that why Jammeh decided to take over the supervision of a company supposed to be autonomous? If so why has he left the management of the port intact? Is it because both General Manger Gibba and Board Chairman Mustapha Colley happen to be his kinsmen? Or is he taking over in anticipation of the kickbacks that an eventual privatization may bring him? 

Whatever, the Office of the President is not the place where whatever is wrong with the GPA is to be rectified. It is Jammeh who must bear the biggest share of responsibility for the decline in the re-export trade which lies at the bottom of almost all the GPA’s current crisis. It was he who ten years ago introduced the Pre-Shipment Inspection Program and selecting a company to conduct it without going through the due selection process. He was also the one who colluded with Amadou Samba and Malick Mboge to introduce the container scanning procedure at the Banjul ports without going through the due process. When former Minister of Finance Margaret Kieta tried to stop the impropriety she was physically manhandled by Jammeh’s agents and summarily thrown out of cabinet. The decline of the re-export trade is a big blow to the GPA and in the end all ongoing expansion and development expenses on the port will just be wastage of tax payers’ money. Continuing with its Soviet-style of secrecy, the Jammeh regime is not disclosing the state of affairs of the GPA and reasons for taking it over.

We advise President Jammeh to place the GPA under an independent management contract selected by the National Assembly if he wants the company salvaged. If on the other hand he plans to privatize the ports, then let him allow a public discussion around the issue. In August 2007 the Jammeh regime announced that it had sold 50% of the shares of both GAMTEL and GAMCEL public owned telecommunication companies. After this was done in a clandestine process and it raised a wave of opposition, former Minister responsible Neneh Macdouall-Gaye surprised the nation by stating that GAMTEL, the country’s entrepreneurial flagship, was in fact on the brink of bankruptcy. Are we in for another shock?