Sources close to Gambia Ports Authority’s Ferry Services and Revenue Department told forGambia News on Saturday that each truck using the newly constructed bridge is charged a tune of D3,150.00 (three thousand, one-hundred and fifty Dalasis) per crossing. Trucks mainly come from neighboring countries including Senegal, Guinea, and Mali.
The same sources informed that the D3,150.00 is paid by forty-five tonnage trucks, which includes trucks that weigh up to forty-five thousand metric tons. Smaller vehicles including passenger cars, sedans, and vans pay D150 (0ne hundred and fifty Dalasis) toll fee per crossing.
New York City’s Tappan Zee/Mario M. Cuomo Bridge charges $5 (five Dollars, a Dalasi equivalence of D200 (two hundred Dalasis); Its Triborough/Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the Hugh L. Carey (Brooklyn Battery Tunnel), as well as Queen’s Midtown Tunnel charge $9 (D456 Dalasis) per vehicle. These figures drop $1.50 to nearly $3.00 for passers with an E-Z Pass tag.
While it is clear that a significant number of New York’s bridge users commute on a daily basis as opposed to the high tonnage trucks of the Gambian dichotomy, it is similarly clear that one truck crossing just once (not coming back to re-cross) is capable of paying a one month salary of some government employees at a certain low salary scale. It is much clearer that many government employees of the Gambia stay at very low salary scales.
It is up to the Barrow administration to make public information easily accessible to Gambia’s citizens. Such information could include how many trucks cross the Yelli-Tenda Bamba Bridge a day, a month, and a year. It is also up to the national assembly members to quiz the right government departments about such information just as it is to the right Gambian journalists back home to do ditto.
Well said Mr Colley, hopefully, Gambians lorries are paying less, like you said comparing the Gambian wages, the sad thing is our MPs, they just like skeleton in a cupboard, sometimes I ask myself if they know their roles or why we voted them for