The Ghana Navy is a branch of the Ghana Armed Forces. Its formation – as the Gold Coast Naval Volunteer Force (NVF) – dates back to the World War II era. Given the economic austerity at the time, Britain sought to relieve the pressure on the Royal Navy by establishing a network of small naval reserve forces across the empire, including in coastal West and East Africa. The first locally recruited colonial naval forces were established in places like Kenya and the Gold Coast (today’s Ghana). The mission of the NVF was “to conduct seaward patrols to keep the coastal waters of the colony free from sea mines.” 

However, as part of Ghana’s first President Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s elaborate and long-term naval ambition to make Ghana a maritime power, at least, within the African context, the NVF was reorganised on the attainment of independence in 1957. The NVF provided the first batch of ratings to form the nucleus of the present Ghana Navy when it was officially established by an Act of Parliament in July 1959. The founding commanders of the Ghana Navy were Royal Navy officers and Ghanaian naval officers trained in Britain.

The Ghana Navy has witnessed massive reorganisation and expansion since its establishment in 1959. Similarly, its mandate under the Constitution of Ghana has grown beyond the defence of the sea frontiers of the country to include various operations on land in support of land forces, civil authority and other security agencies. Its core mandate, however, is to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ghana by overseeing a maritime domain of 64,000 square nautical miles. 

The maritime jurisdiction of Ghana encompasses 320 nautical miles of coastline, a territorial sea extending up to 12 nautical miles, a contiguous zone reaching 24 nautical miles, an exclusive economic zone spanning 200 nautical miles, and a continental shelf not exceeding 350 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

Ghana Navy

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