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The Government of Ghana, through the Ghana Highway Authority, an agency of the Ministry of Roads and Highways has concluded the prequalification of firms for the upgrading of the Accra-Tema Motorway PPP project. 

Four firms have been successful in the prequalification process and have been shortlisted to move forward to the bidding process. These consortia are namely:

• MPGA TEMA ROAD CONSORTIUM (France): ​Meridiam Infrastructure Africa Fund, Group Five Construction (Pty)​, Pembani Remgro Infrastructure
• MOTA-ENGIL/EGIS CONSORTIUM (Portugal): ​Mota-Engil Engenharia E Construccao Africa S.A, Egis Projects S.A
• POWERCHINA CONSORTIUM (China): ​PowerChina International Group Limited, ​PowerChina RoadBridge Group Corporation Ltd.
• VINCI HIGHWAYS-CONCESSOC22 (France): Vinci Highways, Concessoc 22

The RFQ for the project was launched in January 2018, involving the country's first ever Public Private Partnership project in the road sector. The project has been valued at US$200 to 300 million.

The Accra-Tema motorway is a 19km dual carriageway. It forms an integral part of the National Route 1 (N1) starting from Aflao (in the Volta Region) and ending at Elubo (in the Western Region).  It is also part of the Trans West African Highway (Abidjan-Lagos Corridor), linking the city of Accra, the Kotoka International Airport and Tema Port.

The successful bidder will be responsible for the following scope of services under a PPP arrangement:

• Reconstruction of the Accra-Tema motorway with a focus on capacity enhancement.
• Provision of entry and exit ramps at strategic locations along the motorway.
• Upgrading and capacity enhancement of the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange
• Provision of necessary facilities for safe pedestrian crossings
• Construction of grade-separated interchanges at the Tema and Ashaiman roundabouts
• Capacity enhancement of the road link between the two roundabouts of the road leading up to the Afariwa junction on the Akosombo road
• Remodelling of the Apenkwa Interchange
• Upgrading of road linking Apenkwa Interchange and Neoplan junction

The project will be awarded through a two-stage process with Build-Operate-and-Transfer (BOT)contractual arrangements. First, prospective bidders will be prequalified based on legal, technical, construction, PPP and O&M experience, key personnel qualifications and financial capability requirements. The prequalified parties will then be invited to submit bids.

This tender comes after years of slow legislative development regarding PPPs which severely impacted the planning, financing and implementation of infrastructure projects. Its release is thanks in considerable part to the World Bank, who, in 2012, approved a US$30 million loan to finance institutional, fiduciary, legislative and financial capacity building for PPPs in Ghana, support the preparation of a PPP pipeline and implement project management and monitoring and evaluation.

A wave of PPP projects were subsequently announced by the Ghanaian government, with the Accra-Tema motorway being labelled a priority.  Other priorities include two other highway projects, two port expansions (one of which is the Tema Port, to be served by the Accra-Tema motorway) and a joint port expansion and railway.