Key Projects of Ghana

Expansion of Takoradi and Tema Ports

Ports in Ghana are currently publicly owned and run, with regulation coming from the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA). The chief of these are the ports of Tema and Takoradi. Takoradi Port has been subject to a number of improvements via private capital investment in order to establish it as a strategic centre for Ghana’s oil, gas, mining and trading sectors. Some of the profits have subsequently been donated to social enterprises in the surrounding area. The GPHA has advocated its interest in PPPs to develop the capacity and efficiency of port services and trading costs. Three quarters of stevedoring work has been tendered out to the private sector to enable competition as well as efficiency, with GPHA controlling the remaining 25 per cent.

Radiology and Imaging Centre at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital

Korle Bu is the third largest hospital in Africa, with a 2,000-bed capacity, 16 departments and a daily average influx of 1,400 patients. The new Radiology and Imaging Centre – run as a PPP in partnership with GE Healthcare – was launched with the aim of being the number one imaging centre in Africa, adding specialist diagnostic imaging services to the hospital’s existing departments. The project was a key priority of the Ghanaian Government’s initiative to create ‘diagnostic centres of excellence’. It is also used to train undergraduate radiography students from the School of Allied Health and the College of Health Sciences.

Public-Private Partnerships

Ghana’s infrastructure and services were largely public funded up until the year 2000. After reaching economic crisis in the 1980s, the government adopted the World Bank-advocated Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), lessening its social service provision.
Public-private partnerships are now seen by the government as a vital means of funding present infrastructural requirements with a view to becoming a middle income country and reducing poverty.
The National Development Planning Commission estimates that Ghana needs an annual capital investment of US$1.5 billion for infrastructural development over the coming decade.

In 2010, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning founded the Ghana PPP Advisory body to lead public-private endeavours. Subsequently, in March 2012, Ghana was approved an interest free credit of $30 million by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors to instigate PPP initiatives from 2012-16 in areas that would otherwise be stalled by Ghana’s funding gap. The 2014 budget established a dedicated infrastructure fund into which proceeds from the 2.5 per cent value added tax would be routed. The government has worked closely with the World Bank and the Department for International Development to prepare its legislative, institutional, financial and fiduciary landscape for the full potential of PPP. The areas immediately designated by the government for PPP development are air, rail and road transportation, as well as health and water systems. Facilitation of the country’s rapid industrialisation is a principal aim in order to capitalise on exportation to countries in the north, as well as providing transport for international trade. Longer-term priorities for PPP development include improving the agricultural, ICT, housing, municipal and judicial infrastructure. PPPs in Ghana currently trail behind other Sub-Saharan African countries