'What's delaying construction of US$330 million Boankra Inland port?' - AYA asks government

The Asante Youth Association (AYA) is demanding answers from the government as to why work has still not commenced on the US$330 million Boankra Integrated Logistics Terminal project popularly referred to as Boankra Inland Port, a year after a sod was cut for it.

Speaking on Kumasi 104.1 FM's morning show on Monday, November 8, 2021, the General Secretary of the Association, Tweneboah Koduah, said residents in the region want to know why the commencement of work has been delayed.

Mr Koduah told the show host Prince Ofori-Atta that they need an explanation from the government about whether or not funding constraints have been the cause of the delay or someone was behind it.

President Nana Akufo-Addo on November 5, 2020, cut sod for the project.

The president said the concessionaire, Ashanti Ports Services Limited, a joint venture of Afum Quality Limited of Ghana and DSS Associates of the Republic of Korea, was committed to investing a total of $330 million for the realisation of this project.

The president explained that the Boankra Inland Port project has been initiated to provide services to importers and exporters in the middle and northern parts of the country, and also to act as a major conduit for the efficient transportation of transit traffic to and from neighbouring landlocked countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

After completion of the terminal, it will be fitted with an inland clearance depot, customs bonded and unbonded estates; commercial areas such as banks, offices and trading facilities; parking slots, light industrial areas, and an administration complex.

It will be recalled that in January 1996, then-President Jerry John Rawlings cut sod for the construction of an inland port at Fumesua in the Ashanti Region but due to litigation over the land, the project was moved to Boankra, with works formally beginning in 2001.

But only a few primary structures have been completed on the 400-acre land earmarked for the project.

They include the Boankra Shippers Centre/Administration Block, the extension of electricity, water and telephone and the construction of a temporary access road connecting the inland port to the Kumasi-Konongo highway.