Ghana: A port in Mpakadan planned to relieve congestion in Tema and serve the Sahel

The proposed plan is based on the Tema-Mpakadan railway line. Containers would be transported by train from Tema to Mpakadan, on the shore of Lake Volta, then loaded onto barges bound for Buipe. They would then continue their journey by road towards northern Ghana as well as Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

The objective is twofold: to relieve congestion at the port of Tema and to reduce the pressure of freight transport on major roadways. Tema has experienced significant land congestion in recent months, driven notably by the increase in import traffic and the movement of empty containers.

The future equipment must also provide a complete logistical function to the Tema-Mpakadan line, approximately 97 kilometers long. Completed before its opening to traffic, this infrastructure was designed as the first component of a multimodal system combining rail and navigation on Lake Volta.

A corridor focused on trade with landlocked countries

In Mpakadan, the new facility is intended to serve as an interface between the train and the barges of Volta Lake Transport Limited. The government thus aims to prevent a large portion of the freight destined for northern Ghana and the Sahel from being transported over long distances exclusively by truck.

This approach also addresses a regional issue. The port of Tema already serves as a major entry point for goods destined for Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. A Tema-Mpakadan-Buipe route would provide an alternative path likely to ease traffic flow and strengthen Ghana’s role in transit to landlocked countries. This strategy extends the efforts undertaken with Burkina Faso around the Tema–Ouagadougou trade corridor.

The Ministry of Transport has listed the full operation of the Tema-Mpakadan line among its priorities for 2026. Authorities had already identified the port infrastructure at Mpakadan as one of the necessary investments to make the rail corridor economically viable and enable the effective transfer of freight to the lake.

The detailed construction schedule of the new port and its cost have not yet been made public. The next decisive step will therefore be the implementation of the transshipment infrastructure, without which the rail and lake routes will not be able to operate as a continuous logistical corridor between Tema, Buipe, and the Sahel.