POLICE PERSONNEL under the Tema Regional Police Command have chased out members of the gang calling itself #FixTheCountry who attempted to resettle some persons in the government’s uncompleted Saglemi Affordable Housing Project site in the Ningo-Prampram District of the Greater Accra Region, without recourse to law.
The incident occurred when the group bused people including women and children to the project site.
Information available to DAILY GUIDE indicates that the FixTheCountry conveners broke some of the doors to the property and were cleaning the place in readiness to occupy the apartments when police got hint and stormed the site.
The conveners in a statement said that the project was being wasted by the state and therefore they had the right to bring people to occupy the place.
“Earlier today, the Ghana Police Service unlawfully interrupted the resettlement of over 250 homeless citizens including women and children who have been mobilised by FixTheCountry to repossess the abandoned and now rapidly deteriorating Saglemi Housing Project.
“The citizens were interrupted while they were in the middle of a massive clean-up exercise to make the premises habitable. The interruption which took place over a four-hour period after some political party activists from one of the homeless communities tipped off the Ghana Police Service about the presence of the group at Saglemi.”
The FixTheCountry Group rather described the resistance from the police as unlawful, citing Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution as conferring an obligation on the citizenry to protect state property from misuse and wastage.
“While the unlawful action by the Ghana Police Service was peaceful and did not lead to any casualties, FixTheCountry considers their actions as contravening Article 41 of the 1992 Constitution, which places a burden on the citizens of this country to protect and preserve public property and expose and combat misuse and waste of public funds and property,” the group stated.
They were of the view that the plan to resettle the over 250 people in the Saglemi Housing Project is backed by this constitutional provision.
The purpose, according to the group, was to assess the state of the over 150 flats built as part of the Saglemi Housing Project.
“Our activists have taken over 1,000 pictures and have recorded several hours of video footage over the four-month period in preparation for our resettlement of homeless Ghanaians in various abandoned public properties. The pictures and videos show the deplorable state in which a project which cost the government over 200 million dollars was left abandoned and is now in a serious state of deterioration.
“During the four-month period, our activists have mapped out all facilities which were left abandoned at Saglemi, including buses, power plant, poly tanks, streetlights, and all kinds of furniture and fittings. We have also taken note of the ongoing theft on a massive scale of all these furniture and fittings at Saglemi. We also observed that contrary to claims made publicly, Saglemi was not at any time during the four-month period under any surveillance or protection that suggests that the Government has every intention to abandon the properties,” the group noted.
However, the Tema Regional Police Command has beefed up security in the area upon information that the youth group might return again as they vowed.
The Saglemi Affordable Housing Project is a subject of a legal case in which former Water Resources, Works and Housing Minister Alhaji Collins Dauda and others have been charged with causing financial loss to the state.
Alhaji Dauda was charged for misapplying $200 million “by causing the said amount, which had been approved by the Parliament of Ghana for the construction of 5,000 housing units, to be applied towards the payment of 1,412 housing units under the Saglemi Affordable Housing Project.”
A former sector minister, Samuel Atta Akyea, revealed that former NDC government officials involved in the botched Saglemi Housing deal embezzled more than $144 million of the $179.9 million paid to the contractor.
He said only $64 million of the total amount released for the project, was sunk into the project per a report signed by the President of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors, Dr. John Amaglo.
According to him, “The Ghana Institution of Surveyors has come out with a report showing that what is on the ground, measured against the money received will bring out a very huge figure of about $114 million.”
In an interview on an Accra-based radio, Atta Akyea said, “It is stated in black and white that the amount paid to the contractor is $179,904,752.5.
“It is stated clearly that the total works on the ground are $64 million, the difference is what gives you the $114 million I’m talking about.”
He disclosed that former ministers who played a role in the stalled US$200 million Saglemi Housing project will be prosecuted.
Contrary to the public perception regarding the completion of the Saglemi Housing Project, the Minister of Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye had reassured the good people of Ghana of the completion of the project.
He explained that the ministry, as part of measures to complete the project, tasked the Ghana Institution of Surveyors to conduct a cost and technical audit of the contract executed by the contractors in the context of the variety of agreements and commitments made by the parties to the project.
Upon completion of the audit, the minister indicated that the Ghana Institution of Surveyors estimated approximately an amount of US$32 million would be needed to complete the project.
Mr. Asenso-Boakye, who was briefing the media on the Saglemi Housing Project at the ministry, assured of the ministry’s commitment to securing the resources needed for completing the project, regardless of the outcome of the ongoing criminal investigations.
“The doors of the Ministry are open to all and we commit to engaging with any entity or entities willing to do so in truth, sincerity and fairness. We serve the cause of the people of Ghana and we will not renege on that, so help us, God,” he said.
FROM Vincent Kubi, Tema