The dire absence of business activities at the Tema PSC Shipyard and Drydock Corporation has left the multi-million Ghanaian investment a white elephant.
Presently, the facility is active only when the drydock is rented out to expatriates for a meagre charge to carry out some maintenance work on their vessels.
When the work is completed and the vessel sails out, the facility, like the cemetery, becomes dormant.
The company, which used to boast of hundreds of active permanent workers has barely a skeletal staff who hardly go to work because when they do, they will only idle about.
To revive the Tema PSC Shipyard and Drydock Corporation, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, when he was the Minister for Transport in 2015, was humbled by a mammoth demonstration by the workers, who said they wanted the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, which has the financial muscle to turn the fortunes of the maritime ‘sleeping giant’ around.
The workers embarked on the move when Mr Kwetey visited the yard to listen to their concerns.
Carrying placards, the workers of the Tema PSC Shipyard and Drydock Corporation pleaded with President Mahama to implement the recommendation by the Chris Ackumey Committee’s Report that said in part that, the proposal by workers of the Shipyard that GPHA should take over the running and management of the shipyard is worth considering.
Raising eight significant reasons that, to them, the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority had what it takes to upgrade and turn around the shipyard, the Tema Shipyard workers predicted that the company could collapse in a year if the government failed to allow GPHA to take over the ‘dead’ company.
According to them, for the Shipyard to achieve the vision of the founder of the Port of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, as per the original master plan of the Tema Port, President Mahama should task GPHA as the best strategic investor that had the requisite capital and expertise to turn the Shipyard around.
The workers, in 2015, established the fact that the Tema Shipyard, which they described as a ‘sleeping giant’ in the marine industry, had the GPHA as its landlord, explaining that the handling of incoming and outgoing vessels at the Tema Shipyard was under the ambit of the GPHA. Again, they said power distribution at the Dock II and its operational areas were still under the control of the GPHA.
Listening to their patriotic arguments, the government, in June 2016, gave the Shipyard to the GPHA to manage and from July to December 2016, when the GPHA Management took over the Shipyard, 18 vessels were worked on. Before the taking over by the GPHA, January to June 2016 saw the Shipyard work on only six vessels.
In 2017 and 2018, a total of 68 ocean-going and fishing vessels were called at the Drydock for either minor or major repair works, and the success was a result of some new modern equipment the shipyard could boast of, as well as the commitment and dedication of the staff.
The combination of the expertise and capital strength of the GPHA, which is a well-established maritime industry that does not depend on the consolidated fund, but enormously contributes to it, injected about 600,000 Euros in the facility for the procurement of three pieces of equipment to facilitate its operations.
The pieces of equipment were a 45-tonner crane and two Cherry pickers, and these, in no time, revived the Drydock.
Indeed, the Tema Shipyard, under the then interim management of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, which sank reasonable capital and provided modern machinery to enhance the operations of the facility, which neared collapse, saw life.
The workers at the facility were equally relieved to give their best because the GPHA was taking very good care of their needs.
However, on Friday, February 28, 2025, when The Chronicle visited the facility, the entire premises were virtually deserted with just a handful of workers.
The heavy machine shops were dead with no activity. Some of the machines were rusty.
The Chronicle was told that a vessel, which had called to the Drydock for some maintenance works for about three months now, would pay a paltry twenty per cent to the company for renting the facility.
The Chronicle gathered that in 2019, the GPHA was allegedly asked by the government to take its hand off the operations of the Drydock and since 2019, the facility has been on bended knees with very little or no activity.
John Mahama is the President again and the few workers at the yard pleaded with him to visit the facility to have a real feeling of their predicament.
Lastly, they pleaded with him to allow the GPHA, which is financially well-positioned, to adopt the Shipyard, as he did in 2016 to put portions of its fortune at the disposal of the Tema Shipyard, to breathe new life into it again.
