Centre For International Maritime Affairs, Ghana (CIMAG) Examines Political Manfestos

The Centre for International Maritime Affairs, Ghana (CIMAG) has taken note of the manifestoes launched on August 22, 2020 and September 7, 2020, by the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) respectively, committing to the development of the Maritime Sector.

CIMAG is concerned about and committed to the total transformation of the maritime sector in Ghana and the sub region.

CIMAG is thus, obliged, to state its response to the policy promise by the two leading political parties, as follows, for the public record:

NPP’s commitment

Coastal Sea Defense Projects:

The following sea defense projects were commenced after 2017 and are ongoing:

• Axim, Amanful Kumah, Kommenda, Cape Coast, Elmina, and Anomabu.

The following sea defense projects were ongoing, when we came into office and we have completed them:

• Nkontompo, Aboadze, Adjoa, Blekusu, New Takoradi, Elmina.

Construct new harbours at Jamestown in Accra and in Keta as part of Government programme to develop a port at Keta in line with our commitments, the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority is undertaking a feasibility study in the Keta area. An Executive Instrument declaring Keta area a Port Zone was signed in 2018. MOU has been signed with Diamond Cement to construct a jetty to handle clinker for its factory.

Continue building landing sites at Cape Coast, Mumford, Teshie, Axim, Keta, Ada, and Jamestown & Winneba being implemented.

Construction is ongoing at ten (10) fish landing sites namely Axim, Dixcove, Senya Bereku, Gomoa Fete, Moree, Mumford, Teshie, Winneba, Elmina, and Keta. Construction of Jamestown harbour has also started.

NDC’s commitment

As we have done in the past, the next NDC Government will implement a strategic plan for the development of maritime infrastructure and services along Ghana’s coastline.

We will:

1. upgrade the Tema Shipyard and Drydock into a sub-regional service centre for vessels and the oil and gas industry as part of our local content policy
2. position the Tema Shipyard and Drydock to build fishing canoes and small boats for our local fishing industry
3. train and equip Ghanaians with the requisite skills to meet employment requirements in the maritime sector
4. improve the operations of the GPHA in line with modern trends in seaport management
5. partner with the private sector to re-establish a national shipping line
6. establish a special purpose port at Keta
7. develop a dedicated logistics base for the oil and gas industry
8. construct fishing ports at the major fish landing sites including Dzemeni
1. construct an inland port at Hamile to serve as the main port for Burkina Faso and the Sahel Region
10. expand the Takoradi Port to Sekondi to accommodate the increase in traffic that will result from making Sekondi-Takoradi and Hamile dedicated ports for Burkina Faso and the Sahel Region

CONCLUSION

As ‘policy entrepreneurs’ we are particularly excited about the intention to push forward our long held advocacy of establishing a National Shipping Line, among others with the coming of AfCTA.

The centre will hold the parties to their commitments without fear or favor in the interest of the general public.

CIMAG remains committed to monitoring the policy terrain for the development of the maritime sector and job creation.

As a think tank, our main output is policy expertise either in the form of concrete proposals or ‘blue- skies thinking,’ a source of evidence-based policy making.

We remain relentless in speaking truth to power by producing easily digestible outputs aimed at policymakers like the two parties, who profess to want evidence to make policies ‘that work’.

Signed:

Albert Derrick Fiatui

Executive Director, CIMAG

Tel. 0249160604

"The men of [the] Brookings [Institution] did it by analysis, by painstaking research, by objective writing, by an imagination that questioned the “going” way of doing things, and then they proposed alternatives. ...After 50 years of telling the Government what to do, you are more than a private institution. ...You are a national institution, so important ...that if you did not exist we would have to ask someone to create you.”

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September 29, 1966