BRIDGE CHARGES OVER THREE THOUSAND PER TRUCK

July 21, 2019

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For Each Crossing At Farafeni

BRIDGE CHARGES OVER D3,000 PER TRUCK

As Ferry Expects To Cease Operations in September

By Ebrima Papa Colley (Gambiano)

The Senegambia Bridge
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.
Macky (L), Barrow (R)
A Dalasi conversion of Gambia’s new bridge toll stands at $65.625 US Dollars for the forty-five tonnage trucks entering Gambia from Northern Senegal and entering from Southern Senegal in the Casamance region. New York’s toll fee for the above bridges is only 7.6% of what Gambia Ports Authority receives from each truck among, perhaps countless number of trucks from all over West Africa.
forGambia enquired from our sources an approximate number of trucks using the bridge a day to arrive at a  close figure to no avail, thanks to the inability of efficacious record-keeping and accessibility chronic to almost all regimes in a country that has been widely considered the smallest on mainland Africa, and perhaps bigger than the island of Bahrain in the Middle east and only few other city states.
While the services generate such huge income capable of paying a considerable amount of money in state salaries to a country with only two million people, most of whom not employed by government, ferry staff at Yelli-Tenda and Bamba crossing are believed to be jittery about losing their jobs.
Sources speaking to forGambia say there is “a problem” at the said crossing point with staff planning on going to Banjul to decry their fear of fate to the authorities in the event that this September’s talks of eliminating the services of GPA’s Farafeni point becomes truly realistic. “Business for the ferry is not the same anymore. It does only two to three trips a day these days,” said a highly placed source.
While it is natural that the bridge’s business potential would have a domino effect, both positive and negatively, petti-traders also in the area have lamented serious loss in income since the area is now empty. Such criers include Awa Jallow who said she has been selling merchandise at the Farafeni crossing for over a decade. “This is where I have been able to feed my family from,” she stated. “Ive been selling here for more than ten years to pay for my kids to go school,” said Sheikh Joof, another vendor.
A source very close to the Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA), however stated that most of the vendors along the ferry crossing in Farafeni were mainly Senegalese and Guineans. He saw little legitimacy in the remonstrances of the affected vendors who see themselves as victims of the new bridge. “But such is the benefit of developing an area,” he reasoned.
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1 Comment on "BRIDGE CHARGES OVER THREE THOUSAND PER TRUCK"

  1. Habibou Tamba | July 21, 2019 at 10:39 pm |

    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

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