Ghana’s President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been quite proud of his accomplishments in the rail industry.
He boasted that his administration had built more railroads than any other since the country’s independence.
“In the past five years of my government, more railway building has occurred than since independence. We’ve created a strong basis, which will be boosted by 2025. My commitment to developing a new contemporary railway network is unwavering,” hAkufo Addo remarked on December 6, 2022, when he commissioned the Afienya Road Over Bridge, a vital component of the new 97.7-kilometer Tema to Mpakadan railway project.
President Akufo-Addo described the project as “a brainchild of the first NPP Government of 2001 – 2009, when Christopher Ameyaw Akumfi was Minister for Harbours and Railways.” He explained that it was conceived to create a multimodal transportation network, involving road, rail, and lake transportation, to facilitate the haulage of cargo and the movement of people from the south to the north.
With domestic freight and transit freight between Accra, Tema, and northern Ghana, and further to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, being primarily road-based via Kumasi, Tamale, Bolgatanga, Navrongo, and Paga, the President stated that the over-dependence on Ghana’s road network, coupled with the lack of other transport alternatives, particularly between Accra and Kumasi, resulted in congestion, rapid deterioration of roads, and
The erstwhile Ministry of Harbours and Railways commissioned a feasibility study for a multi-modal transport connection between Tema and Buipe over the Volta Lake in June 2007.
“The 2009 assessment emphasized the economic, financial, and operational viability of the multi-modal freight route. The 6th Parliament, during the 14th Sitting of its Third Meeting on October 31, 2016, authorized the Credit Facility and Commercial Agreement between the Ministry of Finance and the EXIM Bank of India, with AFCONS Infrastructure Ltd. as the project’s contractor, he said.