Former Ministers of Works and Housing, Collins Dauda
Collins Dauda is facing 14 charges of willfully causing financial loss to the state
In total, the state has filed 52 charges against him and four others
They have been accused of misappropriating funds in the execution of the Saglemi Housing Project
The Government of Ghana has filed 52 charges of willfully causing financial loss to the state on two former ministers, a former Chief Director of the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Highway, a contractor and a consultant.
In the matter of the state and the five others, former Ministers of Works and Housing, Collins Dauda and Kwaku Agyemang Mensah have been slapped with the charges alongside the Executive chairman of Construtora OAS Ghana Limited, Andrew Clocanas, former Chief Director of the Ministry Alhaji Ziblim Yakubu and Tetteh Angelo, the majority shareholder of Ridge Management Solutions DWC-LLC.
Of the 52 charges, 14 have been levelled against Alhaji Dauda who currently is the Member of Parliament for Asutifi South.
The former Minister is being accused of authorizing certain payments and altering the make-up of the project without recourse to Parliament.
“Alhaji Collins Dauda, between February 2014 and December 2016 in Accra in the Greater Accra Region, you intentionally misapplied the sum of Two Hundred Million dollars belonging to the Government of Ghana by causing the said amount which had been approved by the Parliament of Ghana for the construction of 5000 housing units to be applied towards the payment of 1,412 housing units under the Saglemi Affordable Housing Project,” the first of the 14 charges read.
In the charge sheet sighted by GhanaWeb, the Attorney General argues that the contractor that executed the project was paid $179 million for doing a $68 m worth of work.
“Even though a total amount of $196,428,891.66 has been spent on the Saglemi Affordable Housing Project, with the contractor having been paid $179,904,757.78, investigations revealed that the cost of works executed on the site, including consultancy services, is about $64,982,900.77. Only 651.75 acres of land out of the 2,172 acres of land made available by the MWRWH to the contractor for the project has been developed.
“Investigations further revealed that only 668 housing units were completed by the contractor. These houses are however not habitable. Not a single house under the project has been sold and the Facility remains unpaid, resulting in huge financial loss to the Republic of Ghana.”
Read the charge sheet below