Former Minister of Works and Housing Samuel Atta Akyea
Former Minister of Works and Housing Samuel Atta Akyea has waded into the discussion surrounding the decision by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, to discontinue the Saglemi Affordable Housing case against MP for Asutifi South, Collins Dauda.
In an interview with The Law Lab, the former Abuakwa South MP disagreed with the reasons given as the basis for letting Collins Dauda off the prosecution hook, saying, “It doesn’t make sense.”
Collins Dauda and four others were, hitherto, charged with 70 counts of causing financial loss to the state.
Dr. Dominic Ayine, not long after assuming office as Attorney General, however, discontinued the case, citing, inter alia, defects in the charges.
Responding to a specific question posed to him by Aaron Asiedu-Antwi, host of The Law Lab, regarding views held by some people that he is as guilty in the case as Collins Dauda, Atta Akyea disagreed flatly, suggesting that rather than discontinuing the case on that basis, the AG could have amended the charges to include him.
“Why hasn’t he joined me [in the case]? Now, he has a superior understanding. It was possible to amend the charges to bring me in as the fifth accused that I also made unlawful payments,” the former four-term Abuakwa South legislator argued.
Further, he questioned why a person who makes payment to the state’s loss should be let go merely because another person believed to be equally guilty of the same is not [yet] joined to the criminal trial.
“It’s illogical. It doesn’t make sense!” Samuel Atta Akyea fumed.
Samuel Atta Akyea revealed that he was the one who blew the alarm when he discovered the wrongs committed against the state in the Saglemi issue. “I’m the one who saw through this monumental criminality. I informed the president and put together all the relevant documents.”
The Saglemi Affordable Housing is originally a 5,000-unit project at a cost of $200m, which the government had borrowed in 2012. The cost, as approved by parliament, included both the building and consistency. In the end, however, only 1,506 incomplete units were built with the same whopping amount of $200m.
The erstwhile Akufo-Addo government initiated the case against Alhaji Collins Dauda, former Minister of Works and Housing, Andrew Clocanas (now deceased), former Executive Chairman, Construtora OAS Ghana Limited, Alhaji Ziblim Yakubu, former Chief Director of Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Kweku Agyeman-Mensah, former Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing and Nouvi Tetteh Angelo, CEO of Ridge Management Solutions Ghana Limited for their alleged roles in the Saglemi Housing scandal.
