Hassan Tampuli
The scheduled sod-cutting for an ongoing Hajj Village project by President John Mahama has stoked controversy.
When word hit town about the scheduled ceremony on Friday, New Patriotic Party (NPP) supporters and former government ministers described the action as an attempt to ‘steal the project’ which, according to them, was started long before President Mahama’s second coming.
In his reaction, former Deputy Minister for Transport, Hassan Tampuli, expressed shock at the news that the President was going to cut the sod for the commencement of a project which is ongoing.
Hassan Tampuli, who was in charge of Aviation, stated on his Facebook page that the project is ongoing.
“Did I hear President John Mahama is going to cut sod for a new Hajj Village in Accra on Friday?” he asked rhetorically.
“This project has been ongoing since last year, and it is the initiative of the former Transport Minister Hon Kwaku Asiamah, with the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) and the Hajj Board as the implementing bodies,” he shared on Facebook.
The NPP did not see the need to make politics out of a sacred project as this, he added.
GACL, the post stated, “initiated this project sometime in 2017, 2018.”
“The contract was awarded to a contractor called Mawums for the construction of a new Hajj Village at a new site opposite the Action Chapel.
“The then Hajj Board wrote to GACL for the renovation of the current Hajj Village or provide an alternative and better facility for its operations. This request was brought to the attention of the then Minister, and he tasked the board and management of GACL to come up with a proposal on the way forward for the realisation of the project, hence the resort to a land swap arrangement with a private developer to construct the modern multi-purpose hajj facility at a new site in exchange for same value in kind (land at Airport City 2. This is what NDC claimed NPP had sold during 2024 campaigns).
“Contract was signed in the later part of 2024, and works began and has since continued. Anyone who understands construction will know that the works done there couldn’t have started from 7th January, 2025,” Mr. Tampuli disclosed.
For a project as this, it required GACL Board approval after the minister gave his approval for the deal, the post added.
It is on record that the Paul Adom Otchere-led Board gave the approval for the implementation of the project, the post stated.
“If the JM government says it’s their project, which Board gave the approval since JM has not constituted the GACL board yet?” he quizzed.
In his reaction, the former Chairman of the Hajj Board, Ben Abdallah Banda, also on his Facebook page, stated that “My attention has been drawn to the intended sod-cutting of the already ongoing construction of a Permanent Hajj Village at the Spintex Road stretch of the Airport lands, opposite the Action Chapel, Accra, which was commenced by the erstwhile NPP administration and I present the facts as follows:
“1. The process for the construction of this project was initiated by the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-Bawumia Government as far back as 2017 through the then Minister for Aviation, the late Kofi Adda but later saw a monumental push from the former Minister for Transport, Hon. Kwaku Asiamah.
“This legacy of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-Bawumia Government is one that was seen as a sacred project based on its religious underpinnings, thereby avoiding any form of fanfare, pomp and pageantry in the name of sod-cutting.”
He, therefore, urged the current government to acknowledge the new Hajj Village construction currently ongoing as a legacy project of the erstwhile Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-Bawumia Government.
Meanwhile, the sod-cutting was undertaken by President Mahama last Friday as scheduled.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah