ET Mensah was the minister who presented the deal to Parliament
•The Saglemi Housing Project was approved by Parliament on October 31, 2021
•During debate, some MPs spoke said that due diligence was not done by the government of the time
•Collins Dauda, a former Minister of Water, Works and Housing has been charged for causing financial loss to the state
When the proposal containing the Saglemi Housing project was tabled before Parliament on October 31, 2012, some Members of Parliament on the ticket on the New Patriotic Party who were in the minority then vehemently spoke against it.
The MPs, Hackman Owusu-Agyemang of New Juaben North Constituency, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu of Suame and Papa Owusu Ankomah of Sekondi all spoke out at the proposal with various arguments to further their stance that the deal was a bad one which the state should not enter into.
Excerpt of a Parliamentary Hansard published by Myjoyonline mentions Hackman Owusu-Agyemang as someone who raised serious issues with the intended project.
“Mr Speaker, I cannot for the life of me, with the experience and what I know about these things, see how this project can be proposed,“ he said.
He added that “Mr Speaker, I do not think there has been due diligence as far as value for money is concerned. I would want the Honourable Minister to come again to convince this House that this is indeed the cost and that this, at the end of the day, is beneficial to Ghanaians.”
“I would want to suggest that they must go and do due diligence on this. Approving this and offtaking it on the people of Ghana would not be a good proposal, neither will it be in the interest of the economy generally, because at the end of the day, this panel thing, gives up very easily.”
His views were reechoed by then Minority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu who despite admitting that the country needed some housing project for public sector workers had questions about the deal.
“Mr Speaker, let me rest my case, but it is not tidy; this agreement is not tidy at all,” he said.
The next MP quoted by the report to have spoken against the deal is Papa Owusu Ankomah who raised various issues with the deal.
“So I asked myself, why do we go in for an untried, untested and unproven technology at such a large- scale? This is because we need housing and we must start from somewhere. So we are not starting with 10 –– we are not starting with 100, we are starting with 5,000 –– USD200 million.
“Mr Speaker, sometimes in taking some of these decisions, the weight of that decision must really influence us. If we were using our own private resources to do this, would we be prepared to do that? So if we have USD200 million and we can even get conventional homes for half the number, would that not be better, would that not be a better risk for us, rather than basing our decision on a technology that is only known in Ghana and has been in existence for seven years?”
Typical of Ghana’s Parliament, while the minority caucus opposed the deal, the majority said nothing wrong with it.
Enoch Teye Mensah (ET Mensah) who was the then lawmaker for the Ningo-Prampram is said to have mounted a spirited defence of the deal.
The document quotes ET Mensah as having told Parliament “This company, as we have said has been existing for six months and they have entered into an agreement with the Ghana Home Loans. Ghana Home loans technical teams have also been examined. This is because they would be the off-takers. The houses would be built and they would buy them off. We are not building all the 5,000 at a go but over a period”.
James Klutse Avedzi, then Chairman of the Finance Committee also motioned for the approval of the deal.
“The Committee finds that the project would be of immense socio-economic benefits to the public servants of Ghana as well as provide employment to the teeming youth,” he stated.
The deal was approved amid protest from the Minority side of the house.
The project which was executed but abandoned by the government has become a major story after the government filed charges of willfully causing financial loss to the state against former Minister Water, Works and Housing, Collins Dauda and four others.
They are facing 52 counts of willfully causing financial loss to Ghana.