Ahead of its release, we are pleased to bring you 10 facts about the West African country from a construction industry perspective.
No.1
Road infrastructure in Ghana’s construction industry dates back to 1850. Starting with the walkway before it was widened, hammocks, a durable material, were used to surface the road. (Source: Research Gate)
For more information about road construction projects in Ghana, visit the ConstructAfrica website.
No.2
Ghana was declared a British colony in 1875. It was known as the Gold Coast because of the large amounts of gold found in the area. In April 2019, Ghana overtook South Africa to become the continent’s largest gold producer and the world’s eighth largest gold producer. (Source: BBC News, World Gold Council)
No.3
Ghana is developing its third commercial port in Keta, a coastal town near the Volta River basin in eastern Ghana and a short distance from Togo’s capital Lomé. (Source: International Trade Bureau, Trade.Gov)
For more information on the Keta Port project, please visit the ConstructAfrica website at:
No.4
The Admi Bridge, with its iconic crescent-shaped arch, was the first permanent bridge to span the Volta River, which flows from the south into the Gulf of Guinea. The bridge is Ghana’s longest suspension bridge and was opened in 1957 by its first president, Kwame Nkrumah, when Ghana became the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence from colonial rule. (Source: Wikipedia)
No.5
Railway construction in Ghana began in 1898 from Sekondi, passing through Tarkwa in 1901, Obuasi in 1902, and reaching Kumasi (267km) in 1903. Train service began in 1903. (Source: Ghana Railway Company)
For more information on railway construction projects in Ghana, please visit the ConstructAfrica website.
No.6
Ghana is a producer of oil and natural gas and has Africa’s fifth largest oil and sixth largest natural gas reserves. The petroleum and petrochemical hub is planned to process crude oil and raw natural gas into refined petroleum and petrochemical products for trading, storage, transportation, distribution to third parties and export. (Source: DLCA logcluster.org, theenergyyear.com)
For more information on oil and gas construction projects in Ghana, please visit the ConstructAfrica website.
No.7
Lake Volta, the world’s largest man-made lake, was created in the early 1960s by building the Akosombo Dam and flooding the Volta River’s long valley. The dam was first proposed in 1915 by British-Australian geologist Albert Ernest Kitson. Construction began in 1961 and was completed in 1965. The ambitious project, funded by the World Bank, the UK and the US, has been described as “the largest single investment in Ghana’s economic development plan”. The dam is owned and operated by the Volta River Authority, a government agency. (Source: DLCA logcluster.org, ice.org.uk)
No.8
West Africa’s first hydro-solar power plant was deployed in Ghana in January 2022 in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). This project represents a major step forward in West Africa’s efforts to incorporate more renewable energy into the region’s energy mix. (Source: cleantechnica.com).
To learn more about the buoy hydro-solar power facilities being developed in Ghana, please visit the ConstructAfrica website.
No.9
Kumasi’s Kejetia Market has 11,000 stalls and employs more than 40,000 people. It is said to be the largest market in West Africa. (Source: Lonely Planet)
No.10
The Slavery and Freedom Museum will be built in Cape Coast, Ghana’s former capital and home to Europe’s oldest trading post south of the Sahara. This museum will be the first of its kind in Africa. It globally shares information about the history and global impact of the transatlantic slave trade discursively, visually, and through cutting-edge digital technology. World-renowned Ghanaian David Adjaye is the project’s lead architect. (Source: gmnosaf.org)
Learn more about architect Sir David Adjaye on the ConstructAfrica website.
Photo above: Admi Bridge – a lattice steel arch suspension bridge across the Volta River in Atipoku, Ghana (Charles Ainu | Dreamstime)
