Over 100,000 Ghanaians have been engaged through employment since the start of the Tema-Mpakadan railway project, Vice President at AFCONS Infrastructure Limited, Udai Veer Singh has revealed.

According to the contractor of the 1,000-kilometer Ghana-Burkina rail line, the move was intended to boost local content within the area and knowledge transfer.

Following an inspection exercise for works on the Tema-Mpakadan railway line, Veer Singh told journalists, “Presently on the entire project, more than hundred thousand local people have been employed. This was a new technology for the area. Although Ghana was having the railway system on its map, it was not operational.”

“We only has some specialists from outside the country but all people who are working there are the local people only. Here also, all the track we are laying, all the people are local people, so they got engaged, equipped with the new kind of technique and new kind of workmanship which means they should be able to help in the long run because when this sector opens up people will be required for its operations and maintenance.”

He continued, “So the people who have been engaged were local people who have been with us right from day one and got the expertise, hopefully, they take advantage of that.”

To improve interconnectivity within Ghana and Burkina Faso, the two West African countries in 2017 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Ouagadougou to kick-start a railway project.

The project which is being funded by the Indian EXIM BANK at a cost of US$447 million would link Ghana from Tema to Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou.

Former Minister for Railways Development Joe Ghartey in 2019 revealed that some 28 kilometres of track had been laid, while 40 more kilometres of the track were in line to completed.

When fully completed, the two countries would be connected with a modern standard gauge rail line.