Transport Minister asks Boankra contractors to live up to expectations

The Minister for Transport, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, has asked the consortium of contractors working on the Boankra Inland Port Project, especially the Ghanaian partner, to maintain focus and deliver quality work to justify the confidence reposed in indigenous contractors by the President of the Republic.

According to him, delivery of quality work within the scheduled three-year completion time will pave the way for more local contractors to be awarded such big projects.

“The President gave a specific directive that this project should be led by an indigenous Ghanaian contractor with the requisite knowledge to partner a foreign investor to execute the project. After going through a long, diligent process, Ashanti Port Services Limited (APSL), which is a consortium of Affum Quality Limited Ghana and DSS Associates of Korea, emerged as the preferred partner to develop the Boankra Integrated Logistics Terminal Project. I am therefore cautioning the consortium not to disgrace themselves,” he said.

He added: “If you fail to deliver quality work and within the scheduled time frame, the impression is that the President will no longer have confidence in indigenous Ghanaian contractors for them to be awarded such a big project in future.”

The Transport Minister made these statements when he assisted President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to cut sod for work to begin on the inland port project, located near Kumasi, on Thursday.

Commenting further, he told the consortium that the realisation of the project constitutes an integral part of the country’s strategic transport network aimed at bringing import and export services close to the doorsteps of shippers in the middle and northern parts of Ghana, as well as the neighbouring landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The Chief Executive Officer of Affum Quality Limited, Mr. Isaac Affum, responding to the call made by the Transport Minister, assured that his outfit and its partner, DSS Associates of Korea, have the requisite skills to deliver a world-class project that will make President Akufo-Addo and Ghanaians proud.

He said to ensure work on the project goes as planned, the US$330m meant to finance the project is ready, noting that “now that the President has cut sod for commencement of work on-site, nothing is going to stop or delay us from delivering”.

He said the consortium will position the Boankra Integrated Logistics Terminal to attract new market participants, such as Lotte Logistics and Daewoo Logistics from Korea, ALSCO from China, and NDW from The Netherlands.

The project, he revealed, will provide specialised warehouses for the storage of cocoa beans and grains, in addition to warehouses for the storage of petroleum and petrochemical products, cement and other bulk cargo.

The project is expected to promote technology and skills transfer to strengthen the local resource stock needed for the country’s development and will create 3,000 direct and over 60,000 indirect jobs for Ghanaians.