Speaking at the ceremony, Helene Cave, the outgoing charge d' affaires of the European Union in The Gambia, called for greater support to President Jammeh's back-to-the-land initiative to ensure rapid attainment of the country's food self-sufficiency drive. "The 'back to the land' initiative should be commended, as it will improve, without doubt, the food self-sufficiency [aspiration] of the country. The groundnut sub-sector should remain vibrant and I hope that the EU can contribute to this drive," she remarked.

According to her, the three tugboats were rehabilitated in the context of the EU STABEX project, which is aimed at improving the competitiveness of the groundnut sub-sector in particular with regards to quality assurance. The EU charge d' affaires used the opportunity to thank the Ministry of Finance, for actively participating in the activities of the EU projects in The Gambia for many years.

The Gambia, she said, has the potential to produce over 100, 000 metric tones of groundnut and that one factor that contributed to the prolonged handling of the export of groundnut and its products is the delay in the transportation of the groundnuts from the provinces to the processing plant. "The government of The Gambia in the last quarter of 2007 adopted the groundnut sub-sector roadmap implementation framework which provided for immediate road short term rehabilitation and maintenance of some components at the GGC," she noted.

Helena Cave also explained that the rehabilitation of some river transport fleet will increase production capacity and improve on the turn-around time of the batch fleet from the transportation of the nuts from other parts of the country to the processing plant in Sarro. She said the rehabilitated tugboats will provide the GGC safe environment for the evacuation of groundnuts and therefore, avoid quality deterioration.

"Rural development and food security is one of the three main factors of current intervention of the EU in The Gambia together with world infrastructure and water supply," she indicated. According to her, the financing agreement between the GGC and the EU on the rehabilitation of the three tugboats was signed in March 2008 at a tune of 1.6 million Euros and since then the project has addressed various problems in the groundnut sub-sector, such as the supply and insulation of lab equipment to NARI and GGC laboratories, training of technicians, supplying of food industrials and provision of weighing scales among other things.

"With this project here at Sarro being my last project inauguration under the support of EU, I would like to use the opportunity to thank Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Jammeh, president of the Republic of The Gambia, for all his support and some companies and individuals for their support to the realisation of the EU projects and for making my stay in The Gambia a successful one," she concluded.

In his keynote address, Kalifa Kambi, the deputy minister of Agriculture, disclosed that the EU-funded Framework for Mutual Obligation (FMO) 99 project emanated from a request by the government of The Gambia. He said with EU funding two studies targeting the groundnut sub-sector, recommended the establishment of an integrated quality assurance system for the sub-sector hence the formulation of this project to address the quality problems of the groundnut sub-sector.

According to him, the overall objective of the project among other things is to support the government of The Gambia in its laudable efforts to reduce poverty, improve food security and the living condition in rural areas, especially for those heavily depending on groundnut production. He highlighted the activities planed to achieve the aims and the objectives of the project as: capacity building on quality assurance including an update of the legal and regulatory framework associated with groundnut production, processing, storage and marketing; upgrading an equipment of laboratory facilities for aflotoxin; testing and rehabilitating river transport system and equipping the groundnut buying points (seccos) with new equipment among other things.

"The commissioning of these three tugboats are expected to permit the GGC a quicker and better turn-around time of their vessel fleets in evacuating groundnuts from the GGC's provincial depots to the Denton bridge processing plants," Deputy minister Kambi noted.Speaking earlier, Tony Carvalho, the managing director of The Gambia Groundnut Cooperation (GGC), said the EU project had funded among other things, the rehabilitation of the three tugboats of The Gambia Groundnut Cooperation (GGC) river transportation fleet as part of efforts to improve the timeliness of produce transport, thereby ensuring the quality of the groundnuts.

The boats, he said, are named after Kaur Dandeh-Maayor, Sarro and Sandu. He recalled that the intervention of the EU in the groundnut sub-sector and the GGC dated far back in 1989, with the commissioning of the Groundnut Sub-sector Study culminating to the Groundnut Sector Revitalisation Programme, which is aimed among other things at redressing the continuous decline in groundnut production. In 2007, he went on, the government of The Gambia and the European Union again commissioned a groundnut sub-sector roadmap that has recommended among others the liberalisation of the groundnut sub-sector; the rehabilitation of the GGC tugboats; the provision of an aflotoxin laboratory for GGC; the provision of the electronic weighing scale to 40 cooperative marketing societies and a quality assurance framework to ensure that the sub-sector’s groundnut product meet the prevailing international quality standard in terms of aflotoxin contamination level and contaminant.

He recalled further that in 2008, the World Bank through the gateway project and the EU through the FMO STABEX 99, agreed to implement an emergency groundnut rehabilitation programme covering the recommendations of the EU commissioning roadmap including the rehabilitation of critical components of the groundnut industrial assets to improve their capacity to efficiently collect, process and export a minimum volume of thirty thousand metric tons of unsold groundnut whilst the World Bank rehabilitated the depot handling equipment and scales, the selling and crossing plants and purchased two engines for the river transport tugboats.

He said the EU had provided the electronic scales and screens, equipped the GGC control laboratory to successfully conduct chemical analysis of all GGC groundnuts products and test for Aflotoxin contamination levels, supplied the GGC depots with an equipment to conduct at depot level for rapid analytical test to segregate Aflotoxin contaminated stuff from Aflotoxin free consignments, commissioned the groundnut sub-sector to quality assurance framework for the reduction of Aflotoxin to contamination level in groundnut and rehabilitated the halls of the GGC tugboats to receive the two World Bank funded engines.

"This is no small achievement and we wish to not only acknowledge it but assure the EU that this partnership must grow and continue to consolidate its achievements and lift the groundnut sub-sector and particularly the groundnut producers to the noble heights envisaged in the groundnut sub-sector roadmap," he concluded. Also speaking at the occasion, Serign Cham, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance, said: "As the national authorising officer for all EU-funded projects in The Gambia. This project is to complement other measures of groundnut roadmap implementation framework, formulated in 2006 with financial support from the EU.

According to him, the FMO 99 project was a three-year programme with a budget of 1.6 million Euros designed to improve the competitiveness of The Gambia's groundnut sub-sector and to give the main importers of the product the necessary qualities assurance. The specific issues addressed by the project, he added included four areas: the development of the groundnut quality assurance framework, the shortage of lab and field equipment for testing and analysing the groundnuts for Aflotoxin contamination at the level of NARI and GGC, the outdated groundnut buying equipment screens and scales at the seccos and the slow rate of produce evacuation from the GGC provincial depots to the processing plant in Denton Bridge.

PS Cham noted that the tugboats are being used by the GGC to tour the batches of fleet that carry the groundnuts being collected from the farmers across the country. According to him, the boats formed a critical link in the groundnut marketing chain as they permit timely evacuation of the produce for processing an early placement into the export market. He applauded the longstanding support that the EU have been giving to The Gambia’s agriculture sector in general and the groundnut sub-sector in particular, while citing its socio-economic importance to the people and the country. He urged the GGC to effectively maintain the rehabilitated tugboats so as to prolong their usefulness.

PS Cham thanked the outgoing EU charge d' affaires delegation head for the good working relationship and commitment in The Gambia. The ceremony was chaired by Sait Drammeh, director general of the Department of Agriculture and was graced by Abdou Kolley, minister of Finance and Momodou Tangara, minister of Foreign Affairs, International Corporation and Gambians Abroad.