Government asked to make provision for Keta port in mid-year budget review

Enyonam Apetorgbor, Chief Executive Officer of Keta Investment Promotion Centre (KIPC), has called on the government to make provision for the proposed Keta port in its mid-year budget review to be presented to parliament.

Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, is expected to present the 2023 mid-year Economic Policy and Budget Statement Review of the government to parliament on July 25.

Mrs Apetorgbor said a mention would be made of the project in its true current state with allocation made towards its development in the budget review next week.

In a press release issued on July 17 and copied to the Ghana News Agency, the KIPC boss charged the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance to ensure the project was included in the budget review.

The release alluded to the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of government presented to Parliament on November 24, 2022, which said the Keta Port was substantially completed, and asked the Minister “to consider and make specific budgetary provisions for the repair, maintenance and expansion works at the Keta Port.”

“Repairs because the metals used in the construction of the main port, fishing harbour and the container offices did not pass passivation test to withstand the corrosive weather at the Port. This situation has endangered the durability of the Port infrastructure and the workers at the Keta Port; Maintenance because, the roads connecting and leading to the Keta Port have gone bad with big potholes and manholes just few years after the construction," it said.

“The heavy vehicular traffic to and from the Port has put the road infrastructure in jeopardy hence the need for an immediate maintenance or reconstruction to forestall further decadence,” it added.

“Expansion because the Keta Port since its 90 percent stage of completion reported last year by the Minister for Finance, has since experienced a massive rise in vessel traffic, to the extent that vessels do not have places to berth. A good number of them are on anchorage, seven nautical miles calling to berth. This confirms the quantum of revenue being generated,” it said.

Mrs Apetorgbor called on the President to see the proposed Keta Port as a strategic economic intervention project and not a political one and for real construction works on the project, as his legacy to the chiefs and people of the Keta area.

The long-held dream of a port at Keta received attention from the Akufo-Addo Government who over the years, initiated processes included signing an executive instrument that demarcates the area for the port and advertising for tenders for feasibility studies for the project to come into fruition.