From The
Build Floor.

In our 18 years of delivering construction projects across Ghana, the single most consistent factor separating projects that run smoothly from those that spiral into overruns and disputes is not the quality of the contractor. It is the quality of the planning that happened before the contractor arrived on site.

The construction industry globally estimates that for every GH₵ 1 spent resolving a design problem during the planning phase, the equivalent problem costs GH₵ 10 to fix during construction and up to GH₵ 100 after completion. These numbers are not abstract — we have witnessed them play out on projects where we were brought in mid-stream to rescue a programme that had gone off the rails.

"The most expensive thing in construction is a decision made too late. Get the thinking done before the concrete is poured."

What Does Preconstruction Actually Include?

Many clients assume preconstruction is just the architectural drawings phase. In reality, comprehensive preconstruction encompasses at least five distinct workstreams that must all be completed and aligned before site mobilisation:

• Feasibility and brief development — Ensuring the project is structurally achievable, financially viable, and fully aligned with the client's actual operational needs
• Design development and co-ordination — Resolving all clashes between architectural, structural, and MEP designs before they become expensive site surprises
• Statutory approvals — Building permits, environmental assessments, and utility diversion consents secured before programme-critical dates
• Procurement strategy — Identifying long-lead items (specialist equipment, imported materials) and ordering them before site work begins
• Risk register — Identifying and planning for known unknowns: ground conditions, wet season windows, supply chain vulnerabilities

The Three Mistakes We See Most Often

After reviewing more than 300 project programmes, we see the same failure points recurring. Understanding them is the first step to avoiding them.

Mistake 1: Starting on site before designs are complete. The pressure to show progress — whether from funders, clients, or political stakeholders — drives contractors onto site with incomplete information. The result is invariably costly variations as designs are resolved under time pressure.

Mistake 2: Ignoring statutory approvals until they become urgent. Environmental permits and local authority building approvals can take 4–16 weeks in Ghana. Projects that don't initiate these in parallel with design work frequently find themselves with a completed design but no legal authority to build.

Mistake 3: No contingency for long-lead items. Specialist electrical switchgear, imported architectural cladding systems, and heavy plant items can have 8–20 week delivery lead times from international suppliers. Discovering this after the structural frame is complete causes avoidable delays.

How Bonterra Approaches Preconstruction

On every project we lead, our preconstruction phase formally produces a Project Execution Plan, a Risk Register, a Procurement Schedule, and a Programme of Works — all before a single ground investigation is instructed. We share all of these with clients in an open-book format, because we believe clients who understand the plan are clients who make better decisions when the plan needs to change.

If you are about to commission a construction project in Ghana and would like to discuss how to structure your preconstruction phase, our team offers a free initial consultation. Contact us to arrange a call with one of our senior project managers.

Five years ago, conversations about sustainable construction in Ghana were largely confined to academic papers and international donor briefs. Today, they are happening in procurement meetings, on planning applications, and in the offices of Ghana's largest developers. The shift is real — and it is accelerating faster than most of the industry realises.

What Is Actually Changing on Site?

Sustainable construction is not one thing — it is a spectrum of design, material, and operational decisions. The practices we are seeing gain most traction in Ghana's market right now fall into three categories:

Solar integration. The economics of rooftop solar have changed dramatically. With grid electricity costs rising and battery storage prices falling, our commercial and industrial clients are increasingly specifying solar pre-wiring and roof-loading capacity as standard requirements. On the Northern Star Estate in Tamale, solar street lighting reduced the estate's external power consumption by an estimated 78%.

Locally sourced and recycled materials. Replacing imported portland cement-heavy mixes with locally produced pozzolanic blends reduces both embodied carbon and material cost. On our Brong-Ahafo road project, we sourced over 60% of aggregate from a locally operated quarry within 40 km of site — reducing transport emissions and supporting a local business employing 34 workers.

Passive design and orientation. Simple decisions made at design stage — building orientation, window placement, roof overhangs — can reduce cooling loads by 20–35% in Ghana's tropical climate without adding a single cedi to the construction cost. These decisions cannot be made after the design is fixed.

"Sustainable construction in Ghana is not a premium product. Done correctly, it is a cost-saving strategy with a positive environmental by-product."

The Barriers That Remain

Despite the progress, real barriers exist. Certified sustainable materials are not yet available at scale from local suppliers. Green building standards — LEED, EDGE, and the Ghana Green Building Council's local framework — are not yet mandatory, and few clients demand formal certification. Skilled trades with experience in green construction techniques remain scarce outside Accra and Kumasi.

What Should Clients Be Asking For?

• Request that your architect considers passive cooling and solar orientation at concept stage — before the design is fixed
• Ask your contractor for a materials sourcing plan that identifies local alternatives to imported products
• Specify solar pre-wiring for all new builds, even if panels are not installed immediately
• For commercial projects above GH₵ 2M, consider commissioning an EDGE assessment — the payback period on certified green buildings is now under 7 years in most Ghanaian contexts

Bonterra has incorporated environmental management into all projects under our ISO 14001:2015 certification since 2016. If you are planning a project and want to discuss sustainable construction options, our team is happy to advise at no cost as part of our initial consultation.

In 2022, Bonterra received the National Site Safety Excellence Award from the National Contractors Association of Ghana — recognising three consecutive years without a reportable safety incident across all active sites. I want to be honest about what that recognition means: not that we have solved safety, but that we have built a culture in which the people most at risk are the most invested in preventing harm.

That culture did not come from a policy document. It did not come from our ISO 45001 certification, as important as that is. It came from a fundamental shift in how we talk about safety — from a regulatory obligation that must be managed, to a human responsibility that must be lived.

The Difference Between Compliance and Culture

A compliance-driven safety programme asks: "Did we complete the induction? Did we hold the toolbox talk? Did we sign the risk assessment?" These are necessary steps. But they measure process, not outcome. And more importantly, they measure the minimum — not the standard to which every one of our workers deserves to be protected.

A culture-driven approach asks different questions: "Does every person on this site believe that their safety matters — not because the law requires it, but because their colleagues and their employer genuinely value them?" That shift in question changes everything about how safety is practised on the ground.

"A worker who reports a near-miss is doing an act of courage. We treat every report as a gift — because it is one."

Four Practices That Changed How We Work

• Near-miss reporting without blame. We created a no-blame near-miss reporting system in 2019. In the first year, reports increased by 340%. Not because sites became more dangerous — but because workers felt safe to report. Every near-miss we capture is a future accident we can prevent.
• Site supervisor safety authority. Every Bonterra site supervisor has the authority to stop work, without management approval, if they observe an unsafe condition. This is not theoretical — it has been exercised 14 times across our sites in the past three years. Every time, we have supported the supervisor's decision.
• Monday safety moments. Each Monday morning, every active Bonterra site begins with a 10-minute safety moment led by a different team member each week. The person leading it chooses the topic. This has produced insights about site conditions that management would never have identified.
• Family awareness events. Once a year, we invite the families of site workers to visit active sites in a controlled environment and learn about the safety systems protecting their relatives. The feedback from workers — that it reinforced their own commitment to safe behaviour — has been consistent and powerful.

An Honest Acknowledgement

Ghana's construction industry has a safety record that is worse than it needs to be. Official data underreports incidents significantly. The industry as a whole needs to raise its standards — and contractors, clients, and regulators all have a role to play. Clients who specify safety standards in their procurement documents and who hold contractors accountable for compliance are a crucial part of the solution.

Construction is a dangerous industry. It does not have to be as dangerous as it often is. Every one of our 200+ professionals goes home safe every day because we have made that our non-negotiable — and we believe every Ghanaian construction worker deserves the same commitment from their employer.

When we deployed Building Information Modelling — BIM Level 2 — on the Meridian Office Park in Accra, we were, as far as we know, one of the first mid-sized Ghanaian contractors to do so on a purely domestically funded commercial project. The experience gave us an unusually clear view of both the technology's transformative potential and the very real barriers that stand between Ghana's construction industry and its adoption at scale.

What BIM Actually Changed on the Meridian Project

Before BIM, our standard process for MEP co-ordination involved circulating drawings between trades and resolving clashes during site meetings — sometimes after work had already been installed. On a 5-storey building with 11 independent tenant MEP zones, this would typically generate 30–60 variation instructions during the build. Using BIM, we identified and resolved 47 co-ordination clashes in the virtual model before a single pipe bracket was fixed to a wall. The cost saving attributable to avoided variations was estimated at GH₵ 380,000 — more than covering the cost of the BIM implementation.

"The best time to discover a clash between your structural beam and your air conditioning duct is on a screen — not when you're holding a concrete drill at 14 metres."

The Barriers to BIM Adoption in Ghana

• Software and training cost. Autodesk Revit licences are priced for international markets. For smaller Ghanaian practices, the annual licence cost is prohibitive without financing or subsidy.
• Client-side capability. BIM creates value only when all parties — client, architect, structural engineer, MEP engineer, and contractor — work in the same environment. In Ghana, most consultants are not yet BIM-ready, which means the contractor cannot access the full benefits even when willing to invest.
• No regulatory mandate. The UK mandated BIM Level 2 on all public sector projects in 2016. Ghana has no equivalent policy, removing the procurement lever that drove adoption at scale elsewhere.

What We Recommend

Despite the barriers, we believe BIM adoption in Ghana will accelerate significantly over the next three years — driven by international clients, development finance institutions, and a growing cohort of locally trained BIM professionals returning from overseas education. Contractors who invest in BIM capability now will be ahead of a curve that is coming regardless.

Bonterra is currently working with two KNUST architecture departments to develop a BIM training module for undergraduate students. If you are a design practice interested in transitioning to BIM-led workflows, we are open to sharing our experience — reach out directly to our Chief Engineer.

Ghana's construction sector entered 2026 navigating a complex mix of tailwinds and headwinds: a recovering cedi, continued demand in the housing and logistics markets, government infrastructure commitments under the 2025–2030 National Infrastructure Plan, and persistent challenges around project financing and skilled labour supply. Here are the five trends our team is watching most closely.

1. The Affordable Housing Deficit Is Creating Real Opportunity

Ghana's urban housing deficit is estimated at 1.8 million units, with the gap growing fastest in secondary cities — Tamale, Kumasi, Takoradi, and Ho. Government programmes alone cannot close this gap. Private developers who can deliver affordable product at scale, and contractors who can do so efficiently, will find a receptive market for the foreseeable future. The key constraint is land tenure and title — projects that solve this problem attract finance more easily.

2. Infrastructure Finance Is Shifting

The Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund and Development Finance Institutions including the African Development Bank and IFC are increasingly structuring infrastructure funding through public-private partnerships rather than pure grant or loan mechanisms. This changes the procurement environment significantly — PPP structures favour contractors with strong balance sheets, bankable track records, and the operational capability to maintain as well as build infrastructure over multi-decade concession periods.

3. Supply Chain Localisation Is Becoming a Differentiator

Post-pandemic supply chain volatility and cedi depreciation pressure have accelerated interest in local material sourcing. Contractors who have invested in local supplier relationships and who can credibly demonstrate reduced import dependency are winning procurement evaluations they would previously have lost on price alone. This is a structural shift, not a short-term trend.

4. ESG Requirements Are Entering Procurement

International developers, development finance institutions, and multinational corporate tenants are beginning to require ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) compliance from their contractors — not just their own operations. Safety records, environmental certifications, local employment ratios, and gender diversity on site are moving from nice-to-have to required. Contractors who cannot demonstrate ESG performance will find themselves excluded from an increasing share of the market.

5. Workforce Skills Remain the Binding Constraint

Every other trend on this list depends on the availability of skilled construction workers — engineers, project managers, specialist trades, and site supervisors. Ghana's technical and vocational education system is not producing talent at the pace the sector needs. Contractors who invest in internal training programmes and who partner with TVET institutions for talent pipelines will have a genuine competitive advantage as the sector grows.

Bonterra's strategic plan for 2026–2028 is aligned with each of these trends. If you would like to discuss how they affect your specific project or investment, we welcome a conversation with our senior leadership team.