GHANA – Ghana’s ports will anchor increases in cargo volumes in 2020 following the positioning of Tema and Takoradi Ports as transshipment and oil and gas hubs respectively.

Mr Michael Luguje, Director General, Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), making the projections, said the Authority had made major investments in the country’s ports.

Luguje explained that these investments were made purposely to enable Ghana’s ports to serve as an incentive for the facilitation of intra-African trade, following the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area

Mr Luguje said “We have positioned our ports for global trade, and while we do that we also are looking forward to more intra-African trade going maritime,” he disclosed.

He revealed that the Port of Tema, for instance, had been positioned as the best in terms of infrastructure in the West and Central African sub-region.

“If you look at port infrastructure in the perspective of container capacity, Ghana is leading today in West and Central Africa,” he said.

He projected that with the operationalization of the Meridian Ports Services (MPS) terminal three within the Tema Port and the Takoradi Port’s expansion to do more in the oil and gas services, Ghana would attract more maritime businesses in the year 2020.

He indicated that the MPS Terminal 3 within the Tema Port, operated on a first come first serve basis and therefore did not prioritize certain shipping lines, hence, giving the Tema Port a competitive advantage over other ports.

Mr Luguji revealed that the investment made so far into the Port of Takoradi would boost its import handling capacity comparable with that of Tema while augmenting its interventions to grow the export sector.

Assessing the ports performances in 2019, luguji described 2019 as a productive one in spite of the many challenges that faced the maritime industry.

“We have not had December’s report yet but looking at January to November’s figures we are fortunate to see Tema Port’s total throughput growing by about 5% compared to 2018 and Takoradi recording about 21% compared to 2018,” he said.