Ebrima Cham, the director general of Gamworks, has disclosed that his agency has acquired US$5 million, with the assistance of OPEC for International Development Fund (OFID), including a counterpart contribution from local government authorities, for the third public works project.

The multi-million Dollar project is subdivided into two components, comprising the civil works and capacity building.

Mr Cham made these remarks on Thursday, during the presentation of counterpart contributions by Basse and Mansakonko Area Councils to Gamworks, at a ceremony held at the Department of State for Local Government, Lands and Religious Affairs, Banjul.

According to the Gamworks boss, the civil works component worth about US$4 million, which entails financing sub-projects such as roads, water supply, market and toilets.

On the capacity building project, Mr Cham said the agency has secured US$620,000 for its implementation. He said: "Under this project, we are doing some trainings for local government authorities as well as the supply of information technology equipment to them."

"Currently, we have hired the services of QuantumNet to do some Information Technology (IT) trainings for local government authorities and we will be having representatives from all the local government authorities to attend a three week IT training," he added.

In conclusion, Cham assured the beneficiaries that Gamworks would buy computers for all the local government authorities to enhance their work.

Speaking earlier, Omar Sampho Ceesay, the chairman of Basse Area Council, said his council recently presented D500,000 to Nawec.

At the ceremony, Mr Ceesay presented a cheque for D516,480 to Ismaila Sambou, the secretary of state for Local Government, Lands and Religious Affairs, who handed over the cheque to the Gamworks director general.  This amount, he said, represented a counterpart contribution to the agency for the water supply project at Koba Kunda Village in Basse, Upper River Region.

For his part, Foday Camara, the chairman of Mansakonko Area Council, also presented a cheque for D240,000, as his council's counterpart contribution to Gamworks for the construction of the Soma Market phase II project.  The cheque was also presented to SoS Sambou, who again handed it over to the Gamworks director.

Presently, Mr Camara continued, Mansakonko Area Council is undertaking two other projects in the region; the Bureng Lumo toilet project and a courthouse project for Jarra West.

In his statement, SoS Sambou thanked the councils and various authorities in different regions for their support to the development of the areas. He also used the occasion to pay tribute to President Jammeh, whose efforts he praised for the rapid socio-economic development in the country.