President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has received assurances from Ashanti Ports Services Limited (APSL), the concessionaire for the Boankra Integrated Logistics Terminal project, that the project will be finished by March 2024.
As part of the events celebrating his four-day working trip to the Ashanti Region, the President made that commitment on Sunday while visiting the building site.
The project, which is commonly known as the Boankra Inland Port Project and spans a total of 413 acres of land, has been in the pipeline for about 18 years.
During the Kufuor administration, plans for the Boankra Integrated Logistics Terminal were being developed. It faced a number of difficulties, the most prominent of which was the NPP government's exit in 2009.
However, President Akufo-Addo cut the first sod for the Port's development in November 2020.
President Akufo-Addo was advised by the Concessionaire that the project will be completed on time.
"By the end of 2023, 80 per cent will be done, and, by the end of the first quarter of 2024, we will finish the project," APSL said.
The APSL hoped that the eastern and western railway lines, which would increase the Boankra inland port's viability, would be finished on time.
Afum Quality Limited from Ghana and DSS Associates from the Republic of Korea are partners in the joint venture known as APSL. It has promised to invest a total of $330 million to make the idea a reality.
The inland port is expected to be designed, engineered, financed, procured, built, operated, and maintained by the Concessionaire for 30 years before being turned over to the government.
The project was started to help importers and exporters in the country's central and northern regions, as well as to serve as a key route for the effective conveyance of transit traffic to and from our neighbouring landlocked nations of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
"It is my hope and expectation that the Concessionaire will not renege on the confidence reposed in it and will take all the necessary actions to deliver the project on schedule and budget," the President said when he inspected work at the site.
He was hopeful that "this project and other similar infrastructure projects, such as the development of the Keta Port, the Tema-Akosombo Railway Line, and the ongoing port expansion projects at Tema and Takoradi Ports, would make a positive contribution in ensuring that Ghana derives maximum benefits from the AfCFTA
The Terminal would be equipped with an inland clearance depot, customs bonded and unbonded estates, commercial spaces including banks, offices, and trade facilities, spaces for parking cars, light industrial spaces, and an administrative complex once it was finished.