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Benso railway quarters
Benso railway quarters

Communities to take ownership of railway propertyCommunities to take ownership of railway property— Joe Ghartey

Under a National Railway Re-Development Programme, local communities are to be given a bigger role to play in protecting and managing rail lines and other railway installations.

The model, dubbed, "Community-based Railway Development Programme" will be launched soon by the Ministry of Railways Development.

Local communities where rail lines pass will be empowered through job creation to allow them to take ownership of the rail lines and other railway property.

The Minister of Railways Development, Mr Joe Ghartey, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra, said the model would save rural lines from being damaged by unscrupulous people, and also boost the economies of the communities where the rail would pass.

"Any community where a track passes through, a certain minimum number of people would be employed.

"It is meant to create employment at the local level, allow the local people to take ownership of the railways, which would make them protect the railways, and bring local wealth to the area with the multiplying effect," Mr Ghartey said.

The community railway partnership system has worked in many countries and as Ghana prepares to launch its own version, which will see some of the routes passing through some deprived communities in the country, the model is expected to work for Ghana.

Priority

Giving a broad picture of employment generation in the railway sector as planned, Mr Ghartey said: "Priority will be given to Ghanaians."

He said emphasis would also be placed on negotiating with the investors on local content.

"We will negotiate to the best of our ability when we are taking loans to ensure that our people and Ghanaian companies benefit from the project.

"We shall negotiate to ensure that Ghanaians are on every aspect of the redevelopment project; if we don't do that we could create tension in the local communities," he stated.

Investors pour in

He said currently 200 investors in various areas had expressed interest in the railway redevelopment programme.

They include construction and associated services such as finance and consultancy.

The prospective investors are from countries such as the United States, South Africa, Canada, Spain, Italy, China, South Korea, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Kingdom. There are also Ghanaian companies that have expressed interest.

This railway redevelopment project, the minister emphasised, would take the country to another level.

"It will transform this economy completely; arguably this is going to be one of the biggest projects to start in the country,” Mr Ghartey said.

Preparation

Touching on preparations being made towards the start of actual work on the redevelopment programme, the minister said his outfit was going to take a re-look at the legal and regulation framework of the railway sector.

“This is important because of the amount involved in the project and the complex nature of the investment itself. In every sector, when there is an expansion or  it is about to expand, there is a review of the legal and regulatory regime, so we have to look at our laws again,” Mr Ghartey said.

The available law now is the Railway Act, but the minister said the current arrangements were confusing.

"We have two agencies, the Ghana Railway Company Limited, which is the operator, and the Ghana Railway Development Authority, which is supposed to be a developer as well as a regulator.

"You cannot develop and regulate at the same time. You cannot be a judge in your own court. And so the regulatory framework must change and the regulator must be an independent regulator such as what we see in the maritime sector where we have the Ghana Maritime Authority, which is the regulator," he said.

Training

Associated with the legal and regulatory framework, he said, was the extensive training for staff who would man the resurrected railways.

“We have started with five management staff currently receiving short-term training outside the country, and five engineers from the Ghana Railway Company Limited will soon leave for similar training,” he said.

Back at home, he said, plans were afoot to revive the Ghana Railway Training School, which has virtually collapsed, with the aim to turn it into an institution that would award professional or academic certificates.
 

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