Adjei-Mensah reacts to Bartels' presentation

Accra, (Greater Accra) 25 Jan. '99,

Mr Isaac Adjei-Mensah, Minister of Works and Housing at the weekend assured Ghanaians that the Keta Sea Defence and the Korle Lagoon dredging projects are on course. He said on Thursday, the Eximbank, the group financing the construction of Keta sea defence, met on the project Mr Adjei Mensah was reacting to some of the issues raised by Mr Kwamena Bartels, the Minority Spokesman for Works and Housing, in his contribution to the President's Sessional Address. The Minister said it was not true that "we are playing politics with the project". Mr Bartels had alleged that "another general elections are coming in the year 2000, and the Keta Sea Defence Project is available as an election propaganda weapon". The NPP member told the House that the Minority Group had expressed its reservations about the cost of the Keta project, which had shot up to nearly 83 million dollars from 42 million dollars, even though, the 200,000 tonnes salt production component, had been taken out of the original project. Mr Adjei -Mensah responded that there was an erroneous perception about the cost of the project, explaining that it has escalated because the land area to be reclaimed as part of the project has been increased about five-fold to 324 hectares.

Besides, an access road from Keta to Kyirikasa will be constructed at a cost of nine million dollars. Mr Adjei-Mensah, who is MP for Techiman North, told the House that the salt production component is not part of the Keta Sea Defence Project. "We want the whole world to know that the salt production component has never been part of the project", he emphasised. Mr Bartels: "I am utterly surprised and dismayed by the Minister's statement because feasibility report, which was approved contained the salt production component as part of the project".

Mr Adjei-Mensah insisted that the salt production component was not part of the project and explained that the report suggested that the salt extraction project should be funded by a Japanese loan. "The Keta issue must be allowed to rest", he said, but shouts of "no"! "no!", came from the Minority side. On the Korle Lagoon project, Mr Adjei-Mensah said when he took up office, the contract had been awarded to a Canadian company. He said after one and a half years, the Canadians substituted the ''professors'' on the contract with ''first degree holders''. "We, as an NDC government, will not sit down to be cheated so we abrogated the contract.

The Minister told the House that the Bank of Ghana had retrieved ''the up-front money paid to the Canadians''. Mr Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, NPP-Old Tafo Suame, asked the Minister what had become of the more than three billion cedis paid to the company which failed to execute the contract on the Keta Sea Defence Project. Replying, Mr Adjei-Mensah said the government has negotiated with the company and given it a deadline to pay back the money, failure of which a court action will be instituted.