Parliamentary Select Committee lauds progress on Keta Port

The Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism, Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, and his deputy, Yusif Sulemana, have re-echoed the significance of the initiative to construct the Keta Port and have appreciated the role that's being played by the Director of Port of Keta to see to it that the project comes to fruition.

“It will really be in the national security interest of the country to have the Keta Port,” The honorable ranking member stated.

“I haven’t heard anywhere that somebody has suggested that this project is not necessary. It is very necessary. The President has every right, through an executive instrument to do what he has done,” The Deputy Ranking Member Sulemana corroborated.

The acknowledgement follows a briefing by the General Manager in charge of Marketing and Corporate Affairs of GPHA, Esther Gyebi-Donkor to the members of the Parliamentary Select Committee during their working visit to the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority to appraise themselves with developments at the country’s ports.

The GM for Marketing and Corporate Affairs at GPHA, assured that plans to bring the Keta Port into being is progressing steadily under the leadership of its Director, Dr. Alexander Yaw Adusei.

“He has successfully led the GPHA team to be able to come up with the consultants who are doing the feasibility studies. Currently the consultants have been chosen; which happened in June 2020. They have done the field study; they have provided an inception report for us. Management has discussed and reviewed, led by the Director of Keta and we have made our comments back to the consultants,” she disclosed.

She explained the painstaking nature of planning for the development of a strategic national asset like a port in order to position it to serve the country for decades and beyond.

“Port building is a massive infrastructure project. It takes time and there are so much preliminary activities before the port itself is built,” she said.

The Director General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Michael Luguje, stated GPHA’s commitment to ensuring all processes leading up to the construction of a well-positioned Keta Port that would serve the desires of the Ghanaian people.

“When the feasibility is done, we would want to begin actual construction and certainly, basic facilities would be provided by GPHA,” The GPHA Boss asserted.

He however stated that after the ongoing feasibility studies have been fully assessed, in 2021, the Port Authority would consider all potential financial avenues of investment into the project for success to be achieved.

“The good thing which is encouraging to us is that, we are getting quite a number of general interests that are expressed and we are looking at a situation where we will choose partners that would generate business within the region and ship in and out,” he added.

The Ranking Member of the Committee, Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah, called for increased collaboration between the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority and his outfit towards the successful realization of the Keta Port project.