GPHA To Construct Four-Dual Carriage Road …To Link Tema Port And Motorway

Date published: February 3, 2014
 
Compiled by Richard Kofi Attenkah
The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) has awarded a contract to Messrs Louis Berger at the cost of US$400.000.00 to study and design an alternative four lane dual carriageway to link the Tema Port and the Accra-Tema motorway.

This is to accommodate the volume of vehicular traffic expected to hit the only existing two access roads to the Tema Port- that is the Motorway and the Tema General Hospital (TGH) roads. Already, the two access roads are overburdened with volumes of traffic through the Port.

The alternative four lane dual carriageway, according to GPHA, would start from the Tema Port road, along the beach, to the railway link at the end of the Sakumono lagoon, through the fringes of the lagoon and finally to the motorway, where an interchange would be constructed.

Addressing the media on how far the Authority had come with regards to the proposed expansion project of the Tema Port in Tema on Wednesday, Capt. James Owusu Koranteng – Acting Director General (DG) of GPHA said the contract to Messrs. Louis Berger went through the procurement process from December 2012.

‘It is GPHA’s plan that the construction of the first four lane dual carriageway will be undertaken with the total expansion of the Tema Port for efficient connectivity’, Capt. Owusu Koranteng disclosed.

On the expansion project itself, the Acting DG noted that his outfit has received seven valid bid offers for the project from major contractors and joint ventures from China, Belgium, Switzerland/Israel, Netherlands, Portugal and a Ghanaian company.

Capt. Owusu Koranteng revealed that the bid values ranged from US$489million to over US$2billion, depending on the phasing arrangement selected by the bidder,

‘GPHA intends to develop at least five new berths under the phase one (two for containers, two for multi-purpose and RoRo and one dedicated to passenger and cruise vessels).

‘Phase two, three and four would add up to more container terminals and food/fruit terminals to the cluster. Phase five would target the oilrigs market along the West Africa coast’, he elucidated.

Initially, 53 internationally recognized entities and joint ventures expressed interest to tender for the expansion works, but after the evaluation of their Expression of Interest (EoI), 21 applicants including two Ghanaian companies were shortlisted and they were asked to submit their technical and financial offers for the project, he explained.

Explaining further, he said the expansion project is expected to deepen the depths of the current berths from 11.5m to 16m to enable the port to receive bigger vessels.

He stated; ‘The expansion facilities will also provide dedicated berths for Cruise Vessels that now regularly call at the port to encourage tourism, dedicated RoRo terminal, dedicated fruit and food terminals, a rail terminal for container and vehicles to be carried by rail and more berths for container vessels’.

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