The UNDP called it a state-of-the-art facility, a label of international import that would have sucked-in any sitting African president for a hyped ribbon-cutting.

What stopped Gambia’s Barrow from such? “The plight of the ferries remains in dire condition and putting the fate of the President and the delegation” is out any equation.

But not out of the same equation for ordinary Gambians who are thrown into those death-trap vessels on a daily basis. Some foreign embassies warn their citizens against using Gambia’s ferries for dreadful reasons.

In 1957, Gambia witnessed its Barra Ferry disaster where many perished. Praying while risking the dreadful isn’t a clever option. 

And corrupt procurement officials going to Greece to spend millions on a second-hand ferry just to pocket the balance in the over-inflated budget isn’t either.

Our sources continued, “We’re told the President was going to travel by the ferry and our engineers were doing all the necessary checking only to be told to stand down because the president was advised no to [travel] with our ferries at this moment.”

ForGambia is informed that the ferries currently operating dangerously, “only on two engines,” a reality insiders called “catastrophic and the ferries management should halt all services to save lives.”