Ghana’s entire transport system is facing a severe and costly imbalance; this is according to the World Bank.
While the country’s highways are choked with heavy traffic, its once-thriving and vibrant railway network has quietly ground to a near-total halt, diverting everything onto the roads and highways.
According to the World Bank’s 10th Ghana Economic Update, this six-decade decline of the railway is a major economic bottleneck that is actively destroying Ghana’s paved roads, inflating shipping costs, and killing regional jobs.
The Shrinking Tracks: From 947 km to 160 km
The physical collapse of Ghana’s railways, according to the World Bank, is very steep. In 1960, Ghana boasted 947 kilometers of operational railway tracks. However, by 2020, that active network had withered to just 160 kilometers, which is a massive loss of transit infrastructure.
As the tracks fell into disrepair, public access also disappeared. The share of the Ghanaian population with access to rail services plummeted from 29.6 percent in 1960 to a mere 0.6 percent by 2020.
Today, Ghana’s rail effectiveness stands at under 20 percent, compared to peer Sub-Saharan African nations that average over 70 percent effectiveness. A network that once moved 2.3 million tons of freight and 8 million passengers every year now handles only a tiny fraction of its former load.
Highways Bear the Brunt and the Bill
With the railways out of commission, heavy bulk minerals like bauxite and manganese have nowhere to go but onto asphalt roads.
The World Bank indicates that, for example, after the Western Railway line deteriorated, manganese freight volumes, which had peaked at 1.2 million tons in 2004–2005, completely collapsed after 2008, forcing mining companies to put their heavy cargo onto trucks.
This shift has created two massive problems for the Ghanaian economy.
First, the World Bank says, is the highly expensive nature of the shift. Transporting heavy bulk cargo by road is highly inefficient, adding an extra cost of at least US$1 per ton compared to rail.
Moreover, it destroys the roads, as heavy freight trucks cause exponentially greater physical damage to highways than passenger cars. By pushing heavy mining cargo onto asphalt that was never designed to hold it, the railway collapse has accelerated the destruction of Ghana’s highway network.
This has left the government with a massive, compounding road maintenance backlog of over GHS 8 billion.
Stifling Local Jobs and Value
The death of the railroad has also physically restructured Ghana’s economy. Historically, mineral processing could happen inland, near the mines, creating local jobs. However, because heavy raw materials are now so expensive to transport over deteriorating roads, processing plants have migrated away from mining communities.
Instead, they are clustering tightly around coastal ports like Takoradi and Tema to minimize road transport distances. This migration has stripped mining regions of vital opportunities for local industrial jobs and regional wealth creation.
The Path Forward: Freight-First Revitalization
The World Bank’s report warns that Ghana cannot solve its transport crisis by building roads alone while ignoring the railways. It says the key to unlocking the sector is a “freight-led rail revitalization”.
As experts confirm, historically, passenger trains in Ghana have never generated enough fare revenue to cover their basic operating costs. Therefore, the World Bank advises policymakers to focus first on commercial cargo. Under this strategy, the government should prioritize rebuilding two key commercial corridors using public-private partnerships (PPPs)
For the World Bank, rebuilding the lines would instantly take thousands of heavy, road-destroying trucks off Ghana’s highways, slash bulk cargo costs, and allow inland mining and farming towns to once again process their own goods and create stable local jobs.
