The Volta River Agency (VRA) was established in 1961, through through the passage of a  Ghanaian government Act (46), and was tasked with leading President Kwame Nkrumah's post-independence Volta River Project - arguably the country's most significant infrastructure scheme of the 1960s. As a central part of Nkrumah's modernisation programme, the project was intended to fuel a transformative future through the construction of the Akosombo Dam (completed 1965), and its accompanying infrastructure and development.