By: Joyce Kantam Kolam
The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has cut the sod to commence the construction of an Inland Marine Port at Debre in the Central Gonja District of the Savannah region.
The 200-million-dollar project is expected to make the transportation of imported goods and services to the Northern zone and other landlocked countries easy and convenient on the Volta lake and it is expected to be fully operational by 2025.
Dr. Bawumia, said the inland port will revitalize transportation of all kinds of goods and services on the Volta Lake which will lead to enhanced economies and improve the communities around the Lake and beyond.
According to him, new transportation network is needed to reduce pressure on the roads hence the Debre Port is the right intervention.
The Debre Inland Marine Port is the brainchild of LMI Holdings, a private Ghanaian conglomerate.
It commenced the Development of a 200 million dollar multi-modal transport corridor, dubbed the Trans-Volta Logistics Corridor Project, to transport containers and bulk cargo from the Port of Tema to the Eastern corridor of Ghana and Ouagadougou via the Volta lake.
The project is expected to ease congestion at the country’s seaports and facilitate the transit trade of Ghana’s landlocked neighbors such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger on the Volta lake.
This will improve efficiency, deliver significant cost savings to traders and transporters, reduce pressure on the roads due to the proliferation of heavy-duty vehicles and increase the patronage of the Tema Port.
The project will also enhance the export of produce such as cola, shea butter and cotton and create about 1000 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs.
It is expected that each batch trip from the inland port will take more than 300 large trucks off the roads as well as the more than 30,000 cargo trucks and vehicles that ply the northern zone annually.
An extension of this project will see the development of a 250-million-dollar industrial park on a 1000 acre land at Yapei to primarily enhance the development of Agro- processing to add value to agricultural products. The Chief of Debre, Debrewura Asuma Suluwo commended LMI Holdings for such an initiative. He called for the needed development of the area since Debre is deprived of many projects.
The CEO of LMI Holdings, Kojo Aduhene, said the project is a game changer as it seeks to industrialize the northern part of the country.
According to him, a spin-off of the project will be the development of an ultra-modern Logistics Terminal at Debre, which will consist of Container Service Yard, Container Freight Station and ,Warehouses among others.
Minister of Transport, Kwaku Ofori Asiama, said government will continue to provide safe and efficient inland water transport system.
Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, said with the creation of auxiliary roads linking Debre to other towns, it will become a hub that will attract other stakeholders in the ecosystem to set up other complimentary facilities and businesses.
He said the government is committed to creating jobs for its people, therefore it will give the project the needed support.
The first phase of the project will be operational within the first half of 2024 and the entire project is expected to be fully operational by 2025.