Ghana to assist Sao Tome with port operations
The Minister of Transport, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, has said the country would leverage its experience in port operations to assist Sao Tome with port infrastructure through the use of Ghana’s ports.
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He said the two countries had successfully implemented another agreement in the aviation sector for which the agreement had been renewed for another five or seven years.
Mr Asiamah, who made this known when the Minister of Transport of Sao Tome, Adelino Cardoso paid a courtesy call on him at his office in Accra, expressed the hope that both countries would reap the expected dividend through the partnership.
Courtesy call
Early this year, Mr Asiamah paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Transport of Sao Tome to deepen the relations since, he said, Ghana and Sao Tome had a lot in common.
The visit, according to the Transport Minister, was to enable him (Mr Asiamah) to know the common areas both countries could work together to deepen their relations further.
He said Ghana and Sao Tome had a joint programme to manage the Gulf of Guinea air space and they had been doing it for over two decades.
He said the Sao Tome Minister of Transport, Adelino Cardoso, also promised to reciprocate the visit to acquaint himself with the ports of Ghana.
Mr Asiamah said he and his counterpart intended to look at another area in terms of Sao Tome using Ghana as a port of entry indicating that within the West Africa zone, the country had one of the most sophisticated ports which a lot of Sahelian countries used.
Touting the transformation of the Takoradi port by the government, Mr Asiamah said the draft at Takoradi port used to be 8.3 metres and “we needed to bring it up to international standards”.
He said the Takoradi port could now compete with any port in the world and hoped both countries would reap the expected dividend through the partnership.
He described the visit by Mr Cardoso as good and one which would help concretise the earlier discussions.
“The agreement was to use Tema port but my position is that let us look at Takoradi because we have a new port.
Takoradi port
On the Takoradi port, Mr Asiamah told his counterpart, “We have built a new container terminal with a bigger draft of 16 metres meaning it can receive any ship in the world.”
He said as a deliberate policy the government had worked to transform the Takoradi port into a modern port.
Mr Cardoso in response said he was in the country to visit the port and to see what relations the two countries could have in terms of the port.
“I came so we discuss transport which we have a long agreement.
Because of the proximity between the two countries, we need to have that kind of relationship between us,” he added.