Tender

FCDO prepares 10.6m pound Accra High Commission redevelopment tender

By Staff Writer  |  25 October 2026

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has updated its market engagement notice for the redevelopment of the British High Commission offices in Accra, Ghana, a project it values at 10.6m pounds excluding VAT.

The updated preliminary market engagement notice was published on Find a Tender on 23 October 2026. It follows a first notice in February 2026 and gives the estimated value as 10.6m pounds excluding VAT, or 12.19m pounds including VAT. The procurement specific questionnaire is scheduled for issue in early November 2026.

The British High Commission in Ghana occupies two adjoining sites on Julius Nyerere Link Road in central Accra, near Parliament, the Presidency and several ministries. According to the notice, parts of the office estate are worn and in poor repair because strategic investment and maintenance have been lacking.

The existing accommodation is a split-site office building. The FCDO proposes to keep and refurbish the Volta building. Existing plant structures will be demolished to make room for a new extension, and some external landscaping will be removed to make way for a new cloister and walkway.

Phased construction

The FCDO expects to build in two phases. The Volta site comes first and will stay vacant while it is worked on, with its staff moving temporarily to the Afadja site. Before then, minor works will make the Afadja building suitable for use as a decant property. Once the Volta works are complete, all staff at Afadja will move to the Volta building so that the second phase can be carried out in the empty Afadja building.

The design includes refurbishing the retained building to an open plan office standard, replacing the mechanical and electrical installations, seismic strengthening and associated structural works, and external works to form shared spaces inside and out. All work, including that of subcontractors, must meet the relevant UK standards.

Contract and security

The FCDO expects to let the works under the NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract, Option A, a priced contract with an activity schedule. The project team is also considering an early contractor involvement stage ahead of construction, with both stages in the same contract.

Parts of the building will carry a higher security classification; a separate specialist contractor will build those parts under its own contract. The interface with those areas will have to be managed by personnel cleared to Security Check level, and the contractor must be able to provide them before the works contract can begin.

The timetable

The route to market under consideration is the competitive flexible procedure, with a request to participate stage, assessed against conditions of participation, followed by an invitation to tender. The schedule in the notice, which the FCDO says may change, puts the issue of the questionnaire in early November 2026 and the invitation to tender in late January 2027, with a bidders' day during the tender period. The proposed bid deadline is late March 2027 and contract award is planned for mid-May 2027. The notice gives a contract period from 10 May 2027 to 25 October 2030.