Barely 24 hours after German Chancellor, Angela Merkel pledged to encourage more investment flow from her country to Ghana, the German Railways Authority expressed interest in developing the country’s railway sector.

This was in 2008 during the administration of former President John Agyekum Kufuor.

A team of experts were expected to arrive in the country to carry out a feasibility study, cost calculation and steps to be taken for the realisation of the goal.

Dr. Otto Wiesheu, a member of the Management Board of the Company, led a delegation to break the news to President John Agyekum Kufuor who was on a two-day state visit to Germany at his Hotel Suite in Berlin.

Fast forward to 2020, the country’s railway system remains a figment of the imagination.

Though some gains have been made in the sector, a failed promise of the construction of a sky train has overshadowed and clouded the achievements recorded in the railway sector.

Read the full story originally published on August 25, 2008, on Ghanaweb

The German Railways Authority has expressed interest in assisting Ghana to improve and modernise its railways system.

A team of experts is therefore expected in the country within the next few days to carry out feasibility study, cost calculation and steps to be taken for the realisation of the goal.

Dr. Otto Wiesheu, a member of the Management Board of the Comapny, led a delegation to break the news to President John Agyekum Kufuor who was on a two-day state visit to Germany at his Hotel Suite in Berlin on Thursday.

The Germans offer of help came barely 24 hours after Chancellor Angela Merkel had pledged, during bilateral talks with President Kufuor, to encourage more investment flow from her country to Ghana. Dr. Wiesheu said the Company was determined to come in with the needed technical expertise and funding.

President Kufuor directed the Foreign Minister and Ghana's Ambassador to Germany to liaise with the Company and arrange to get the two sides to hammer out the details without delay.

The Government, he said, wanted to see the two main maritime ports of Tema and Takoradi and the Boankra In-land Port linked with reliable and efficient railways system that would also be extended to the northern parts of the country and connected with the neighbouring landlocked countries.

Meanwhile, President Kufuor has demanded from development partners sincere commitment in their dealings with Africa.

Responding to a toast at a state banquet held in his honour by German President Horst Kohler, he said the Continent must be seen more as an emerging market whose raw materials should be given added value in order to attract fair returns on the wider international market. It was through this that they would be helping to reduce poverty in the Region and make for meaningful and mutually rewarding partnership.

He underscored the need for everything necessary to be done to make the World Trade Organisation (WTO) credible among all of its member countries.

The rich and powerful should develop the political will to provide countries of the South fair access to the international market through the removal of farm subsidies.

Earlier, President Kohler praised President Kufuor for his tremendous services not only to Ghana's democracy but to the peace, stability and regional integration of Africa, describing him as "a statesman and great political leader."

He said President Kufuor belonged to a new generation of African leaders, who, confident of the Continent's future, were exploring Africa's paths to democracy and the rule of law as well as international co-operation.