Transactional advisor starts work on 6-lane Tema motorway

Plans to rehabilitate and expand the Accra-Tema Motorway into a six-lane highway will soon take off under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

A transaction advisor has been engaged in this respect.

The project is expected to ease congestion on the 19-kilometre stretch and improve the movement of goods and services.

Roads and Highways Minister, Alhaji Amin Amidu Sulemani in an exclusive interview with The Finder said the World Bank assisted the ministry to secure the services of the transaction advisor.

Under the project, he said a lane would be added to each side of the Accra-Tema Motorway to make it six lanes.

Alhaji Sulemani said the private partner would toll the motorway for a number of years to be agreed in the contract, to recoup the investment, after which the road would be handed over to the government.

He said government would initiate the process to select a competent entity that would undertake the rehabilitation and expansion of the motorway based on the recommendations of the transaction advisor.

The project design comprises replacement of existing 150mm reinforced concrete slabs with 200mm ones; provision of two-lane service roads on both sides of the motorway with Asphaltic Concrete surfacing; provision of 200 – 300mm crushed rock base on the service roads; and provision of 200 – 300mm natural gravel sub-base on the service roads.

The Accra-Tema Motorway is a two-lane dual carriageway having cement concrete surfacing with 2m bituminous surface dressed shoulders.

The 19km motorway forms an integral part of the National Route 1(N1) starting from Aflao (in the Volta Region) and ending at Elubo (in the Western Region).

It is also part of the Trans West African Highway (Abidjan-Lagos Corridor), linking the city of Accra, the Kotoka International Airport and Tema Port.

The?Accra-Tema Motorway, which links Accra with Ghana’s industrial and manufacturing hub, Tema, was one of the numerous prestigious projects conceived and built by the first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

The project formed part of the Seven-Year Development Plan (1963-1970) of the CPP government intended to transform the economic and material conditions of the country.

The motorway project was started in 1964 and opened to traffic in 1965.