The Minister for Finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has revealed plans by government to declare the Takoradi Port as the port for the Sahel region.

He stated that the Takoradi Port will be the main corridor for landlocked countries that import goods through Ghana.

The aim for the project is to safeguard the country’s road network which has been under intense pressure from the movement of heavy-duty vehicles, carting food items and other goods from the Sahel and other West African countries.

Speaking at the Ishmael Yamson and Associates Business Roundtable in Accra, Dr. Forson said there is ongoing conversation between Ghana and landlocked countries like Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali.

 “We will ensure that overloading on our roads which is destroying the road investment becomes a thing of the past. The long term major intervention is to have a railway to serve our brothers and sisters in the Sahel” he said.

He announced that government will build a railway line from Takoradi to Hamile to be the main mode of transportation of cargo to the northern part of Ghana.

People from the Sahel, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and other countries can take the goods from Hamile in the Upper West Region” he said.

He revealed that the project is capital intensive but will serve the country’s economy better in the long term.