AFRICA

Call for Tema Port expansion probe

7 years ago

The Tema West Constituency chairman of Ghana’s governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said that negotiations on the contract for APMT’s $1.5bn Tema Port expansion project were not properly carried out and that the deal is financially questionable.

Dennis Amfo-Sefah, also known as Nana Boakye, stated that an US$800m tax exemption granted to contractors, Meridian Port Services (MPS), raised questions about the motives of the government which gave the contract out, reported GhanaWeb.

“The whole project has been quoted to cost $1.5billion and out of this, $800 million is in tax exemption. What kind of arrangement is that?,” Mr Amfo-Sefah said.

Investigation needed

According to Mr Amfo-Sefah, Ghana’s parliament should investigate the contract. “Yes, it was Parliament that approved this contract, but Parliament approved it when John Mahama was President and the NDC, had the majority in Parliament. Now that a different party has the majority in Parliament, I think it will be proper to look into this strange arrangement.”

The Terma Port expansion project, which began in October 2016, will result in four deep-water berths, a new breakwater and an access channel able to accommodate the world’s largest container ships. APMT said this will add 3.5m teu in annual throughout capacity.

APMT said the first two deep-water berths are expected to be able to receive commercial vessels by the end of June 2019. Port infrastructure for receiving and delivering containers from/to shippers and consignees will also be ready.

By Rebecca Jeffrey