Saglemi Housing Project: Mahama government cheated Ghanaians – Atta Akyea

The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Samuel Atta Akyea, has accused the erstwhile Mahama administration of shortchanging Ghanaians by a little over 300 housing units in relation to the Saglemi housing project near Tsopoli in the Ningo-Prampram District in the Greater Accra Region.

This follows the retrieval of documents, which the minister believes clearly establishes that the initial 5,000-housing units-project pegged at about USD200 million was reviewed downwards twice – in terms of the number of units – “under bizarre circumstances” without parliamentary approval.

At a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, 24 April 2019, Mr Akyea said his predecessor, Mr Collins Dauda, under the Mahama administration, failed to exhaust laid-down procedures in his move to scale-down the number of housing units to about 1,000 at a cost of USD100 million.

The Minority in Parliament has been mounting pressure on the government to release the completed housing units for habitation to address the two million housing deficit in the country.

However, Mr Akyea revealed that the housing units are unfit for purpose in spite of the huge cash paid to the contractor.

He is, therefore, assuring Ghanaians that his ministry will release the facility for public use once the Attorney General gives her legal opinion on the best way forward.

Asked if he had contacted Mr Dauda after he discovered the anomalies, Mr Akyea said: “If I started poking my nose into what Collins Dauda did, somebody might interpret that as: ‘Have you come to hound him?’ You know what a minister does, you just hand over the facts to the Attorney General and if they believe it should go to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), it will go to EOCO and that is when they will invite you”.

The Abuakwa South MP said he is not interested in personality clashes, but “I’m here to give you facts, in cold print, these are not my inventions”.

The lawmaker disclosed that: “This is an inherited trouble that I have met but I can assure you that I am not here to malign anybody, the facts are speaking for themselves… In good time, those who have the powers of investigation, when they go there, they might have to explain, they might never go there, I don’t know, but let’s apply the pleasure of the Attorney General”.

In 2016, former President Mahama commissioned the first phase of the project to complete 1,500 of 5,000 housing units.

A percentage of the houses are to be sold at subsidised rates for low-income earners in the country.

The project was expected to be a complete city, with industrial and recreational facilities, schools, shopping malls and other social amenities.

This was meant to provide a solution to the housing deficit in the country.

However, the project is incomplete with the current administration blaming the past administration for various lapses.