MUSCAT: Expansion works on the Tema Port will start next year. The first phase of the $1.5 billion project is expected to be done in about three years.
The port is expected to handle thrice its current traffic of about one million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) when completed, according to marketing and public relations manager Paul Asare Ansah.
The investment, according to Mr Ansah, “is going to expand the capacity of the port to handle even 3.5 million TEUs, far in excess of the projections that we have made.”
As part of the project, the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) intends to “reclaim about 120 hectares of land.” Mr Ansah added that the port will become efficient “up to about 2040 to 2050,” after the expansion works.
The GPHA and Meridian Ports Services signed the $1.5 billion agreement in June this year.
Minister of Transport at the time, Dzifa Attivor, who witnessed the signing, said the project will enhance the efficiency of the port and make it more competitive. The project is expected to provide employment for more than 3,000 Ghanaians.
The expansion works, the first of its magnitude since the port’s construction in 1962, include a new 1.4-kilometre quay for four container berths with 16-metre draft and a 3.85-km breakwater within a dredged port access channel, 19 metres deep and 250 metres wide to accommodate larger vessels. The project will also come with a railway terminal for the movement of containers by rail to and from the port.
Added to the project will be the expansion of the Accra-Tema Motorway into a six-lane expressway with service lanes on either side to accommodate the traffic that will come along with the expansion of the port.
