The construction of the harbour was proposed by British Colonial Officers in the Gold Coast before its independence. An old fishing village called Torman was the proposed site for the harbour's construction.[6] The rapid industrialization that followed Ghana's independence led to the town adopting the name Tema from that of the fishing village. After independence, under the leadership of Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah, the construction of the harbour began in the 1950s with planning led by the award-winning city planner and the first Ghanaian architect, Theodore S. Clerk.[7][8] and was commissioned in 1962.[6][9]
As part of a visit of the Prime Minister of Barbados to Ghana in November 2019, a sister-port agreement was signed between Port Tema and the Bridgetown Port located in the Caribbean.[11]
Area of the harbour
Tema Harbour is made up of almost four million square metres of land, with almost half of it made by closed seas.[3]
Harbour activities
At Tema, the harbor primarily sends cacao beans. Shipments for Northern African countries are also processed at Tema.[3] The harbour handles 80% of Ghana's national exports and imports.[6]
Tema Harbour expansion
The Tema Harbour and Port of Tema is undergoing an expansion and investment of $115 million in infrastructural upgrading at the Tema harbour and port of Tema as part of efforts aimed at expanding facilities of Tema port to meet decreasing cargo traffic by the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA); and in which the expansion and investment will go into the purchase and instalment of cranes, reach-stackers, ship to shore cranes, among others.[12] The harbour upgrades will improve the cargo-handling capacity of the Tema harbour and port; and the amount of freight will continue to rise as Ghana's economy maintains its high rate of growth, with expansion tipped to come in at just under 8% in 2013.[13]
^ abNewsRoom, Citi (16 November 2019). "Ghana, Barbados sign agreement to establish sister Port relationship". General News. Adentan, Accra: Modern Ghana. Retrieved 16 November 2019. Ghana and Barbados today, [November 15, 2019] signed an agreement to establish a sister-port relationship between the Tema and Bridgetown, to facilitate the expansion of trade between the two countries, especially trade transiting through Barbados from Ghana and onward to other Caribbean and Latin America destination ports. The agreement was signed at the Jubilee House, when the Prime Minister of Barbados, Her Excellency Mia Mottley, paid a courtesy call on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, as part of her official visit to Ghana.{{cite news}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
