… to ease congestion and improve transit trade
The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) has said that it will complete work on the new truck park at Paga border by end of this month to ensure smooth operations for truck drivers and boost transit trade.
The new truck park has been designed with amenities and offices that will bring relief to truck drivers and state agencies working at the border.
During a recent tour of the facility, Project Head Ronny Ablakwa of Possible Agencies Limited, the contractor, said the project will be completed in November 2020. He said the pavement has been done to last for several years due to the heavy loads the trucks carry.
“This park is designed to contain almost 200 trucks. So, in all we are going to demarcate for parking the trucks to ease traffic. There are places for cars to turn and places where the trucks are permanently parked.”
Hitherto, the existing truck park was in a very deplorable state – especially during the rainy seasons, with instances recorded when trucks overturned due to its poor nature. The GPHA thus sought to provide a long-lasting solution to this problem and offer a suitable truck park for the use of its transit market.
The 30,165 square-metre project is over 85 percent complete and expected to have facilities such as fire-hydrants, light-mast bases and cable ducts for the future installation of light masts; sanitary facilities including washrooms; and an ablution area and prayer shed for the convenience and use of truck drivers and visitors to the truck park.
There will also be installation of razor-wire rolls on the truck park fence wall for enhanced security, and drainage improvements at the truck park’s entrance.
Speaking to Eye on Port, the representative of GPHA in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, David Songotu, decried the deplorable state of the truck park – adding that a lot of accidents happen from the truck park to Paga town which make the whole place blocked.
“The truck park was full of dust, and during the dry season you may not be able to stand here for a minute. Trucks often fall, and during the rainy season it is even worse,” he recounted. He stated that the idea of constructing a truck park started when a delegation from the Port Authority visited the area to witness the poor state in which the truck park was.
The Principal Revenue Officer and Second in Command at the Paga border for the Customs Division of GRA, Agbeko Akrobeto, was enthused about the project and described it as one of the largest parking sites for trucks from Ghana to Burkina Faso. For him, the park will facilitate the collection of revenue.
