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By: Edward Graham Sebbie
For years, the $449 million Tema-Mpakadan railway has been a track to nowhere, ending abruptly at the banks of the Volta Lake without a port to receive its cargo. That is about to change.
Government has announced plans to build a new inland port at Mpakadan that will finally connect rail to water, allowing containers from Tema to be floated to the north on barges instead of being hauled by trucks.
Transport Minister Joseph Bukari Nikpe disclosed the plan on September 8 during an inspection tour of Volta Lake Transport Limited, describing it as the missing link in Ghana’s multimodal transport dream.
The corridor will run: Tema → Rail (97km) → Mpakadan → Volta Lake → Buipe → Road → Northern Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
“Our thinking is to decongest the Port of Tema by creating a multimodal transport system,” Nikpe said.
The project, backed by a $200 million pledge from the International Finance Corporation announced by President John Mahama, includes rail integration towards Ouagadougou.
The Ghana Railway Development Authority has already taken delivery of two locomotives and 20 wagons, with €20 million EU support for signalling upgrades.
But there is a hold-up — a fish farming company, Triple Port, is occupying the exact site earmarked for the port.
“Government has secured an investor working at Esikuma to construct the inland port, but the fish farm has become a major obstacle,” Nikpe admitted on Channel One TV on September 9.
Once cleared, officials say, the Mpakadan port will serve as Ghana’s first rail-to-barge interchange, taking thousands of heavy-duty trucks off the country’s highways and positioning the Volta Lake as a trade highway to the Sahel.
