Tema (Greater Accra) - Seven marine related companies have teamed up to form the Ghana Ports Consortium (GPS), to invest about 200 million dollars in the infrastructure developments of the Tema Port.
Dr Richard Anane, Minister of Roads and Transport who announced this at the weekend at a meeting with some members of the Board of Directors and management of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) during a visit to Tema, said the consortium had made proposals to both government and the GPHA to be awarded a concession to manage.
The consortium is made up of AP Terminals, the world's largest container shipping line, Bathgate Management Limited, leading infrastructure developer, Beckett Ranking Partnership, an international port consultancy and Bonygues Travaux Publique, the largest construction company in France.
Others are Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, of Liverpool, SDV Ghana Limited (BoUore Group), which is West Africa's largest shipping line, and Sutton Group, Ghanaian partners. Dr Anane said GPS wanted to be awarded a concession to manage, operate and further develop a container terminal.
He pointed out that there was the need to fast track the development and management of a container terminal to increase the capacity at the port. Dr Anane disclosed that government had studied the proposals offered by GPS, and had, therefore, given the approval to the GPHA to negotiate and award the concession to the consortium.
Mr Ben Owusu Mensah, Director-General of the GPHA said, that was why the GPHA as part of its efforts to play its expected role in Ghana's gateway project, had awarded contract for the extension and development of quay two at the Tema port into a modern container terminal.
He said the container terminal should be able to initially stock 100,000 containers, and in the process of growth reach about a million. The Director-General disclosed that the project would be completed within 18 months, and emphasised that, just as "we are privatising a lot of facilities at the port so that GPHA becomes the landlord, this will be managed by the GPS consortium."
