Government to make railways viable travelling option for Ghanaians
The government will build more railways and improve on major roads to provide viable options to the Ghanaian travelling public, Vice President John Dramani Mahama has said.
He said under such infrastructural development, government would develop the Accra- Tema- Accra-Nsawam- Kumasi railway lines to bring a relief to passengers who were currently compelled to travel only by road from Accra to Kumasi.
Vice President Mahama said this when a Chinese delegation from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) called on him at the Castle, Osu.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is the largest bank in the World with a customer base of 270 million individual customers and 4 million corporate customers.
A total of 205 institutions from 29 countries are also working with the Bank on its international networking system.
Vice President Mahama said Ghana had a huge deficit in infrastructure such as roads, bridges, harbours and the energy sector and therefore partnering a giant bank like ICBC would empower the government to address the inadequacies.
He said Ghana’s foreign reserves had moved up to $4 billion and is now capable of taking more credit facilities to undertake development projects and gave the assurance that Ghana would partner them in the not too distant future.
On food production, Vice President Mahama said Ghana was now moving from food sufficiency to a net exporter of food and with a little financial support ”we shall start exporting food in large quantities.”
Mr Jiang Jianqing, chairman of the Bank, said his outfit’s total assets exceeded two trillion United States Dollars by the end of 2010.
He said the ICBC had already provided Angola with a $2.5 million dollars for its development projects and supported Botswana and hoped to partner the government of Ghana in the areas of railways and Agriculture.
He expressed satisfaction at the reduction in Ghana’s inflation and the rapid growth of the Gross Domestic Product adding, “You are moving faster than China and we shall not regret doing business with you.”
Also at the meeting were Alhaji Collins Dauda, Minister of Transport and Dr Alhassan Andani, Managing Director of Stanbic and other collaborators.
Source: GNA