The Keta Investment Promotion Centre is calling on the Minister for Finance to consider and make specific budgetary provisions for the repair, maintenance and expansion works at the Keta Port, ahead of the 2023 Mid Year Budget Review.
According to the KIPC, the ports needs repairs because the metals used in the construction of the main port, fishing harbour and the container offices did not pass passivation test to withstand the corrosive weather at the Port.
In a statement issued by the Centre, it’s CEO, Enyonam Apetorgbor notes that the situation has actually endangered the durability of the Port infrastructure and the workers at the Keta Port.
She also explains that maintenance of the roads connecting and leading to the Keta Port have gone bad with big portholes and manholes just few years after the construction.
“The heavy vehicular traffic to and from the Port has put the road infrastructure in jeopardy hence the need for an immediate maintenance or reconstruction to forestall further decadence.”
To ease the heavy and busy vehicular traffic, policy should not ignore multimodal transport system at the Keta Port. Expansion because the Keta Port since its 90% stage of completion reported last year by the Minister for Finance, has since experienced a massive rise in vessel traffic, to the extent that vessels do not have places to berth.
“A good number of them are on anchorage, seven nautical miles calling to berth. This confirms the quantum of revenue being generated to complement the $3Billion IMF loan, hence the need to expand. I invite the business community to visit the ultra modern Keta Port. In recognition of Keta Port as the new strategic economic zone of the Volta Region and country at large, there is the need to invest in the expansion of the Port as a priority,”