The Keta Investment Promotion Center (KIPC) is urging the Finance Minister to consider and make specific budgetary provisions for the repair, maintenance and expansion works at the Keta Port in the Mid-Year Budget.

According to a statement signed by its Chief Executive, Enyonam Apetorgbor, it requested for repairs because the metals used in the construction of the main port, fishing harbour and container offices did not pass the passivation test to withstand the corrosive weather at the Port.

This situation, it said, has actually endangered the durability of the Port infrastructure and the workers.

Again, it called for maintenance because the roads connecting and leading to the Keta Port have gone bad with big portholes and manholes just few years after the construction.

“The heavy vehicular traffic to and from the Port has put the road infrastructure in jeopardy hence the need for immediate maintenance or reconstruction to forestall further decadence. To ease the heavy and busy vehicular traffic, policy should not ignore multimodal transport system at the Keta Port”, it stressed.

Also, KIPC called for expansion because the Keta Port since its 90% stage of completion reported last year by the Minister for Finance, has since experienced a massive rise in vessel traffic, to the extent that vessels do not have places to berth.

“A good number of them are on anchorage, seven nautical miles calling to berth. This confirms the quantum of revenue being generated to complement the $3 billion International Monetary Fund loan, hence the need to expand. I invite the business community to visit the ultra-modern Keta Port. In recognition of Keta Port as the new strategic economic zone of the Volta Region and country at large, there is the need to invest in the expansion of the port as a priority”.

KIPC again reiterated its call for a good budgetary allocation for the repair, maintenance and expansion of the Keta Port in the 2023 Mid- Year Fiscal Policy Review.