UMat Railway Courses To Help Revamp The Sector

The Ministry of Railway Development, Ghana Railway Company and the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) in Tarkwa have agreed to develop courses in railways to improve upon the current state of the rail sector

The programme, when operational would lead to the award of certificates and degrees.

Mr Joe Ghartey, Minister of Railway Development announced this in Tarkwa during UMaT's 5th alumni public lecture.

The lecture focused on the topic "Ghana's Railway Infrastructure Development, Challenges and Opportunities for the Mineral Industry" was chaired by Dr Peter Amponsah-Mensah, Executive Director and Co-founder of Pamicor Limited.

Mr Ghartey said the Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Jerry Kuma had assured him that it was not an impossible task for a programme to be developed in railways.

He said the Ministry has a training school and that they would liaise with UMaT to build the important sector for the benefit of Ghanaians.

The Minister was hopeful that the cooperation between the two parties would bear fruits for the people of Ghana, create professionals, develop the human resource and foundation upon which the railway sector would grow.

According to him, in India, apart from farming, the rail sector was the major employer of people .

In Ghana, the minister said the amount of rail line presently operational was 54 kilometres from Nsuta to Kojokrom and about 10 kilometers from Accra.

He emphasised that the entire railway network was not up to 100 kilometres but its employees were about 1,400 people.

"Can you imagine when we have 4,000 kilometres of rail the number of people we would employ", he asked.

Mr Ghartey stressed that the ministry would in the next four years spend about $7.8 billion dollars which was about 30 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product on the building of railways.

He said the ministry should be able to sustain the railway lines as there was no point constructing a rail network which would not last long and another government would be forced to invest heavily in the same sector again.

Professor Jerry Kuma, Vice chancellor of the university promised to do everything possible to make sure that the railway training school stood tall with the scheme of things

He said with the 'one district one factory' project initiative of the President there was an indication that majority of the youth would get jobs once the railway becomes operational.

Prof. Kuma said the university was fully behind the ministry to make sure that the needed man power development for the sector was provided.

GNA
By Erica Apeatua Addo, GNA