Indian infrastructure builder to play lead role in West Africa
The Indian company which constructed Ghana’s presidential palace, Shapoorji Pallonji (SP), says it sees many opportunities in Ghana and the West African sub
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region, as it steps up efforts to play active roles in the process of infrastructural building.
The company, which has existed for 150 years, said it had a sizeable number of projects in the pipeline, particularly in the areas of core infrastructure such as railways, port expansions and housing.
“The future looks exciting, as well as challenging with so many opportunities coming up in West Africa. We are also making inroads into francophone countries such as Ivory Coast, Togo, Djibouti and Senegal. Shapoorji Pallonji looks forward to playing an active role in the process of infrastructure building for Ghana, as well as the entire region of West Africa,” the Regional Manager in charge of Business Development, Mr Rajesh Nair, told the Daily Graphic.
Shapoorji Pallonji has executed a number of projects in Ghana and other parts of West Africa. These include Ghana’s presidential palace, The Flagstaff House; educational institutions in Ghana; 2,000 housing units in Algeria and the National Assembly building of the Gambia.
SP International is currently executing the construction of a five-star hotel in
Freetown, Sierra Leone, as well as additional 3,200 housing units in Algeria.
Mr Nair explained that the group’s business interest covered construction (including residential, commercial, industrial and infrastructure), real estate and infrastructure (comprising railways, power, ports and roads).
The rest are biofuels and agriculture, consumer products, electro-mechanical, facades and interiors, engineering, textiles, business automation, and shipping and logistics.
“In India, SP has also taken a major step in the oil and gas sector of the country. Together with Bumi Armada Berhad – the Malaysian international offshore oil and gas services provider – our company has successfully delivered the first floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) for D1 field of ONGC in a record time of 16 months,” Mr Nair said.
Subsidiary and Africa
Afcons is a flagship infrastructure construction company of the SP Group, which has presence across 12 countries, including India, Middle East and Africa regions.
The regional business development manager said the company had over five decades of consistently delivering projects ahead of schedule in the focus areas which included marine works, highways, bridges, railway, metro works, tunnels, oil and gas and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tanks.
“Afcons has successfully executed several projects in the West African country, Liberia. Since 2010, Afcons has delivered multiple projects in Buchanan, Tokadeh and Yekepa for Arcelor Mittal for its iron ore projects in Liberia,” he stated.
The subsidiary’s first projects in Africa were in Ethiopia in 1989 and it has since maintained a sustained presence in the continent with turnkey projects, including an oil jetty, a cruise berth and corrosion protection to steel pipes in Mauritius,a nickel mining port in Madagascar and the Assab Port in Eritrea.