Residents of Boankra in the Ejisu Municipality of the Ashanti Region are seething with anger over the delay in the commencement of the inland port project.  

They have threatened a demonstration to register their displeasure about the delay in executing the project to boost economic activities in the area.

The angry residents told Accra100.5FM’s morning news on Friday, 15 July 2022 that when the government broke ground for the construction of the project during the Kufuor administration, many were those who moved to the area to purchase properties in readiness for the take-off of the inland port project.

They said decades down the line, nothing has happened.

The residents said what is more worrying is that all the properties purchased in the area by private individuals have been abandoned because of the government’s delay in kick-starting the project.

They said the area has turned into a ghost town because the majority of the youth have left to seek greener pastures in Kumasi and its surrounding areas.  

The Assemblyman for the Wiriso Boankra Electoral area, Mr Samuel Fordjour, said they have started the processes to seek the needed permission from the police administration to enable them to register their protest about the government’s decision to delay the project for over a decade. 

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on November 5, 2022, cut sod for the commencement of work on the US$330 million Boankra Integrated Logistics Terminal project, popularly referred to as the Boankra Inland Port Project, which has been on the drawing board for some 18 years.

The idea of the Boankra Integrated Logistics Terminal project has been in the pipeline since the days of the government of the 2nd President of the 4th Republic, John Agyekum Kufuor.

In attempting to bring it to fruition, it encountered a number of challenges, a significant one being the exit of the NPP government in 2009.

Cutting the sod for the construction of the port on Thursday, 5 November 2020, Mr Akufo-Addo explained that the project has been initiated to provide service to importers and exporters in the middle and northern parts of the country, and also to act as a major conduit for the efficient transportation of transit traffic to and from our neighbouring landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.