The Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) has opened discussions with the Asian division of accounting and auditing firm, EY, for the firm to partner with a team of experts from the country to estimate how much it will cost the authority to implement turnkey projects contained in its medium term development plan -- the SADA Master Plan.

The partnership is to provide SADA and the local staff the opportunity to tap into the vast expertise and skills of EY in the costing and designing of financing models for game-changer projects such as those captured in the 25-year old plan.

SADA's Chief Executive Officer, Charles A. Abugre, said that the partnership with EY will be the outcome of an existing relationship between SADA and Surbana Jurong, the Singaporean urban planning and designing institution that is helping the authority to design and implement the master plan.

Already, the authority has secured a five-year service agreement with Surbana under which the Singaporean institution is expected to help mentor local staff in the designing and implementation of the master plan.

As a result of the service agreement, Mr Abugre said his outfit was confident EY will agree to partner with local staff to undertake the cost estimates of the projects. "We expect to reach this agreement shortly because of the relationship with Surbana Jurong, which will last till 2018. It is within the framework of this service agreement that Ernst & Youngs is coming board," he said in an interview.

Priority projects

Once formalised, Mr. Abugre said the partnership will help prescribe appropriate financing mechanisms that the authority can use to source for funding from the government and the investor community to implement the projects.

He explained in an interview that SADA required the estimates to use in marketing 12 of the projects, dubbed game-changer projects, to the government, the local and international investor community and the private sector.

The 12 projects include the redesigning of the Tamale Central Business District (CBD), the Buipe Port and Port City, the Bolgatanga Dry-port, Logistics and free trade zone, the Volta Water Transport Improvement project, the Kintampo Agric-Processing Park and the Wa Industrial Park, which SADA wants to use to turn the fortunes of the Norther Savanna Ecological Zone around.

They require between five and 15 years to implement after which they would have generated several jobs and opened the area up to investments from agriculture, tourism, education and infrastructure, among others.

Mr Abugre explained that the estimates of the cost of the projects would be done in phases that range from five years to 25 years.

"The first five years estimates will also prioritise the projects that need to be done within those years and they will cost the implementation of those projects. Base on the costing, they will then design a financing vehicle from which we will try and raise funds locally and internationally to implement the projects," he said.

Once the estimates are completed, Mr Abugre said SADA would use it to advocate for funding from the government to help implement the projects.