Ghana 98km Standard Gauge Tema-Mpakadan Line nearing completion
Ghana’s new 98km standard gauge railway line between Tema and Mpakadan is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, the country’s railway development ministry told reporters this week.
Construction of the line, part of a broader plan to link Ghana with Burkina Faso by rail, has suffered repeated delays since it was first announced in 2017.
“We’re hoping that by the end of the year, we should be seeing a practical completion,” transport minister John-Peter Amewu said during an official inspection visit to the newly completed Volta Rail Bridge.
The government planned to buy two second-hand DM for use on the link, Amewu added.
“We are aware of the heavy traffic between Afienya and Tema and so if we are able to put those vehicles on the track, it is going to take that pressure off the road and make commuters comfortable,” according to reports.
The newly built standard gauge line, which runs between the port of Tema, near Accra, and Mpakadan, near Akosombo, is part of the 1,000km Ghana-Burkina Faso Railway Interconnectivity Project that aims to connect Tema in Ghana to Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso.
Around 800km of the line will traverse Ghana with the remaining 200km running from Paga on the Burkina Faso border to Ouagadougou.
Construction has been pegged at an estimated US$2.2bn. Funding for the Tema-Mpakadan section, which has reportedly cost US$447m, has been secured by the government of Ghana via credit from the EXIM Bank of India.
A start date for the construction on the remainder of the 1,000km corridor is still to be confirmed. The project has suffered a number of delays, however, most recently due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite the two countries signing the MoU on the project in 2017, just 28km of track had been built by December 2019, according to media reports at the time.
The new line is part of US$21.5bn with plans to extend the Ghanaian rail to more than 4,000km of standard gauge track over the next three decades, Germany-based website www.dandc.eu reports.
Ghana’s colonial-era rail network amounts to some 940km of 1,067mm track that has suffered from poor or absent maintenance since the country gained its independence in 1957.
The Interconnectivity Project is expected to improve transport links between agricultural centres and urban markets as well as provide a much-needed transport boost along the planned route while creating an estimated 30,000 new jobs at the same time, DandC said.
The government has meanwhile secured a €500m loan from Deutsche Bank to build 78km of standard gauge track from Manso to Huni Valley on the former Western Railway Line, Amewu told reporters.
Contractors Amandi Investment Limited, who had already been paid €68m, were currently on site, he added
The 22km section Kojokrom to Manso section was more than 70% complete with a handover date expected in the second quarter of the year, constructionreviewonline reports.
The ministry was also seeking approval to use the Exim Bank facility to fund a standard gauge line from Accra to Nsawam through Achimota and Kotoku, the website added.
