São Vicente: Cruise Terminal ready at the end of March and ships docking in April - minister

Jorge Santos spoke to the press after visiting the Enapor facilities and the works at the Cruise Terminal.

“The maritime work has already been completed, and at this moment the first phase of the 'On Shore Power Supply' project, which provides energy and water for the Cruise Terminal, is also practically completed,” he explained.

Likewise, he continued, the ground work on the terminal, the station and the exterior arrangements of the square, which will be one of the squares in the city of Mindelo, open to the public, with its amphitheatre, are still in the final phase.

During the visit, Jorge Santos was confronted by the person responsible for the construction company carrying out the works at the Cruise Terminal about the lack of specialized labor and the fact that companies do not have enough workers to meet the demand for the work.

Regarding this, the government official stated that this is a problem that is occurring, at a general level, in civil construction, mainly in Cape Verde, from where specialized labor has been leaving for abroad.

“What we discussed with contractors is the need to further intensify vocational training in the construction sector and its specialization. Because with the labor mobility that we are seeing at a national level, there is a tendency for part of the Cape Verdean workforce to go abroad, not only to Portugal, but also to Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg,” he added, noting that this has happened in several areas.

“We cannot forget that we still have 47 thousand young people who do not have jobs and do not have professional training. Therefore, we have to work hard, intensify, instead of training 100, train 400 and of those 400 train with higher quality”, he said.

Regarding the small parcels centre, where the minister also learned about its operation, Jorge Santos praised the fact that “one of the biggest and most disruptive reforms” in this service began 18 months ago, which allowed parcels to be processed through freight forwarders in a short space of time.

In this regard, it announced the opening within a few months of private freight forwarding logistics centers in the city of Praia, already equipped with scanners.

According to the chairman of the board of directors of Enapor, Ireneu Camacho, the Cruise Terminal is ready to dock cruise ships and they are currently finishing the land works to have better conditions to receive cruise passengers. This is why they are not yet allowing cruise ships to dock at the terminal.

“The land side has already been built. The station part and the restructuring of the garden in front of it still need to be finished. In other words, it is the final touches that take time and we believe that they will be completed by the end of March,” he said.

The person in charge said he believes that in April Enapor will be in a position to not only receive cruise ships, but also to receive cruise passengers who will be on these ships in suitable conditions to visit the city.

Inforpress/End