Debre — Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Friday cut sod for the construction of a $200 million Debre Inland Port project and a 1,000-acre industrial park worth $250 million at Debre in the Central Gonja district of the Savannah Region.
The project being executed by LMI Holdings is expected to facilitate the transportation of containers and other cargo from Tema port to the north of Ghana and other neighbouring countries.
Dr Bawumia in a speech underscored the importance of the project, especially for the movement of goods, cross-border trade, and preservation of Ghana’s roads.
“Using the Volta Lake, vessels will transport goods and containers in transit to and from the Tema Port. These containers will be moved by rail to Akwamu-Korankye and then loaded onto barges to the Debre Inland Port.”
Dr Bawumia said the “$200 million inland marine port and the $250 million Industrial Park will address a myriad of issues that continue to plague the movement of goods in Ghana and to our neighbours in the sub-region.”
According to him, most of the over 30,000 trucks, annually, moving goods to landlocked countries of the northern boundary of Ghana would be taken off the roads.
“The total monetised benefit for the intervention encompasses a reduction in generalised cost, comprising vehicle operating cost, travel time, carbon emission, reduction in transportation cost, and reduction in post-harvest losses,” he stated.
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The Chief Executives of LMI, Mr Kojo Aduhene said the Debre Port project included the development of a logistics park at Debre to capture a greater share of transit trade volumes in the sub-region to be known as the Debre Logistics Terminal.
“The logistics park will be known as the Debre Logistics Terminal (DLT). It will be an ultra-modern integrated logistics terminal consisting of a Container Service Yard (CSY), Container Freight Station(CFS), Reefer, Warehouse, Truck Parking Area, Trucker’s Facilities, Fuel Station, Commercial Complex, Freight Forwarder Offices, and facilities for the courier, telecommunication, utility services among others,” he added.
“The port will create directly a 1,000 to 1,200 direct jobs and over 10,000 indirect jobs in the area and will bring relief to the youth who normally travel far from home to look for non-existent jobs,” he said.
The Savannah Regional Minister, Saeed Muhazu Jibril, stressed the economic importance of the project to the region and the entire northern zone, adding that when completed the project would facilitate the embarkation of containers and other cargo from the termination point of the Tema-Mpakadan railway line to Debre.
The entire project is expected to be fully operational by 2025 with the first phase expected to be operational by 2024.
Present at the ceremony were the Ministers of Transport, Mr Kwaku Ofori Asiamah; and Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor; Director General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Mr Michael Luguge; and representatives of the governments of Burkina Faso.
