Government to split railway authority
The Ministry of Railway Development is considering the possibility of splitting the Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA) into two institutions. One will take care of the development of the sector while the other acts as the regulator.
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The railway sector has been identified as one of the priority areas of the new government, and this move is to further strengthen and position the sector to enable it to receive the necessary investment that has eluded it over the years.
The Minister of Railway Development, Mr Joe Ghartey, disclosed this to the Daily Graphic when he visited the immediate past Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Alidu Abubakar Sadique at the GRDA.
He said there was the need to strengthen the institutional and legal framework of the sector, and one way to do that was to split the GRDA so that the new bodies could perform their duties effectively.
Under the Railway Act 2008 (Act 779), the GRDA is expected to promote the development of the railway sector, hold, administer and improve railway assets and promote the development and management of sub-urban railway.
Under the same Act, the GRDA is expected to grant licences, concessions and leases which are necessary for the operation of railways, exercise ownership rights over assets that are transferred to the authority from railway asset, set and enforce safety and security standards for the construction and operation of railways, as well as regulate and monitor the activities, licencees, concessionaires and operators of railway.
The sector minister was of the view that the same institution being in charge of development and at the same time being the regulator would lead to the ineffectiveness of the authority, hence the need to create another institution to tackle the development of the sector.
“The Ghana Railway Authority is the developer and is supposed to develop the infrastructure or be the lead government agency in developing the infrastructure, and at the same time is the regulator. This will not aid the development we hope to see in the sector,” he said.
“The Aviation industry for instance, has the Civil Aviation Authority as the regulator and the Ghana Airport Company as the developer and we think the same should be done for the railway sector as well,” he added.
Farewell to past CEO
The minister thanked Mr Abubakar Sadique for his services to the authority and said the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, would be naming a new CEO for the authority soon.
Mr Abubakar Sadique joined the Ghana Railway Corporation in 1986 as a national service person and rose through the ranks to become the Deputy Chief Engineer.
He was in April 2011, transferred to the GRDA as acting Director of Planning, Development and Research and later promoted as the Director for Planning, Development and Research.
Upon the retirement of Mr Emmanuel Opoku in January 2013, he assumed the position as the substantive CEO of the GRDA.
GRDA act
Under the same Act, the GRDA is expected to grant licences, concessions and leases which are necessary for the operation of railways, exercise ownership rights over assets that are transferred to the authority from railway asset, set and enforce safety and security standards for the construction and operation of railways, as well as regulate and monitor the activities licensees, concessionaires and operators of railway.
