TAMALE, Ghana — On July 29 local time, Ghanaian President Mahama invited Gabonese President Nguema, who was on a state visit to Ghana, to jointly inspect the construction site of the Yapei Bridge of the Northern Bridges (NB) Project, Ghana, undertaken by China Railway No.5 Engineering Group. The two presidents expressed full recognition of the project’s standardized construction practices, engineering quality, and progress in project implementation.
The Project is a core project of the cross-border transportation network in West Africa. Located in the Tamale metropolitan area of Ghana’s Northern Region, the project comprises four major river-crossing bridges—Yapei, Buipe, Daboya, and Nawuni—which span the White Volta River and Black Volta River. The project constitutes a key overland transportation corridor connecting northern and southern Ghana and linking the country with Burkina Faso. Construction officially commenced on September 30, 2024, and the entire project is scheduled for completion and opening to traffic by the end of 2027.
The hydrological conditions of the Volta River system in West Africa are complex. Key bridges such as the Yapei Bridge have water depths exceeding 10 meters throughout the year, with significant rises in water levels and strong currents during the flood season. The riverbed at the bridge site consists of exposed bedrock without an overburden layer, presenting major technical challenges for deep-water pile foundation drilling, steel trestle construction, and steel casing installation. Since construction began, the overseas project team of China Railway No.5 Engineering Group has faced multiple challenges, including the intense heat of West Africa, continuous rainfall during the rainy season, lengthy cycles for overseas material allocation, and the difficulty of coordinating local construction activities. The team established dedicated technical task forces to overcome construction bottlenecks one by one. For the first time in Ghana, the project team implemented a complete deep-water steel cofferdam construction process using suspended steel cofferdams, overcoming technical challenges such as seepage control for deep-water pile caps and high-precision drilling of pile foundations in exposed bedrock. The team has strictly implemented quality and safety controls throughout the entire construction process and adopted standardized and civilized construction management practices. At the same time, it has conducted local skills training, providing hands-on guidance to local workers in bridge construction techniques, thereby promoting local employment and the development of infrastructure talent. To date, the project department has successfully completed all substructure works for the four bridges, with overall project progress remaining stable and under control.
