The processes leading to the construction of the Port of Keta are progressing steadily with the commencement of the environmental and social impact assessment.

The Director in Charge of the Keta Port Project, Dr. Alexander Adusei, has led a team from Coastal and Reclamation Engineering Services Ghana Limited, who are the consultants for the environmental and social impact assessment, to the project site ahead of their work.

The consultants will be engaging stakeholders in the Volta region for the next six months on both the positive and negative impacts of the project.

Earlier, the director in charge of the Keta Port Project led a senior management team from the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority together with the consultants to pay a courtesy call on the Dufia of Kedzi, Togbi Joachim Acolatse I, where they were later introduced to him.

The Municipal Chief Executive for Keta, Emmanuel Gemegah, pledged his support and that of the municipality to the consultants to ensure a successful environmental and social impact assessment.

‘’For the assessment, we will have people come into the community to ask them questions about their livelihood and what they think about the project. I am going to encourage my people to freely divulge information, to freely cooperate with them, and then even accept them into their homes,” he said.

The Technical Manager of Coastal and Reclamation Engineering Services Ghana Limited, Mathew Baker, explained the scope of work they will be carrying out.

He said ‘’a really important phase is stakeholder engagement. Stakeholder engagement is a critical phase going into the community to find out what everyone’s views on the project are, what their concerns may be, and what their expectations are, so that we can build those concerns and expectations into the impact assessment.”

The Director in Charge of the Keta Port Project, Dr. Alexander Adusei, was optimistic of the project coming to fruition and the importance of the environmental and social impact assessment.

Dr. Adusei said, ‘’This is a very important step for us. Without a completed report, which includes an environmental impact assessment and a feasibility study, you cannot get a credible investor. Every investor needs these two reports to go but to ensure that we don’t waste too much time, what we’ve done is, while we are running this, we are running the investor pool in parallel, that one too we have about twenty-four (24) companies that have expressed interest. We have parried it down to about six companies, but we’ve kept the window open for those who are still interested in applying to go ahead and apply. We will still use the same vigorous template of review for anyone who comes in.”