Corruption Cause Of Saglemi Housing Project’s Bad state - Asenso

The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Francis Asenso Boakye says Saglemi housing project is in a very poor state due to corruption and lack of proper planning by politicians. Asenso boakye believes the status quo of leaving politicians in charge of the affordable housing projects has worsened the housing deficit. Government

has also come under strict scrutiny over the failure to operationalise the over 1,000 housing units completed as of the 2016. But the sector minister believes that the current challenges could have been also avoided if a National Housing Authority which his ministry is also proposing as a solution to the many challenges facing

affordable housing projects initiated by the state is in place. In doing all that we intend to do, we also believe that there is also a huge institutional gap in the housing deliberation in this country. I don’t believe in putting the housing development in the hands of the the politicians because I believe that it’s a technical job and the reason

why you don’t put housing projects in the hands of the politicians is to ensure that we can ensure continuity in addressing housing problems. If you are not lucky and find an unscrupulous politician in office, the end result is what we have at Saglemi. Project failure is what you will will experience, and it will not be properly thought

through and the implementation will not go well and corruption will be the order of the day. That is all the Saglemi is all about. Mr. Asenso further chastised the erstwhile NDC government for not completing housing projects started by the then Mr John Agyekum Kufuor administration. In the case of affordable housing, in recent times the the first major affordable housing was

started by President Kufuor. He didn’t finish the projects before he left office and it was also expected that the succeeding government will continue it out of goodwill and even in response to the constitution, but it rather went to do a new project bypass at Kpone, where one of the affordance housing projects was and went miles away just for political consideration. This project was also designed in Saglemi and a lot of things were not considered.

About Saglemi housing project

The first phase of the the Saglemi housing project has 1,500 housing units and was commissioned by John Mahama in 2016 but has been left unused. The project, which was intended to reduce the country’s massive housing deficit is seated on a 300-acre land with one to three bedroom apartments for low-income earners. The

$200 million project was initially for the 5,000 housing projects. In 2018, the then Minister for the Works and Housing, Samuel Atta Akyea also invited the Attorney-General to scrutinize the agreements. There were also reports that key contract documents were missing or had inconsistencies. The government believed there

was a misappropriation of funds in the project, resulting in shoddy work. Mr. Atta Akyea had accused a former Works and Housing Minister, Collins Dauda, of altering the original agreement for the Saglemi housing project without recourse to Parliament. He claimed that after Parliament passed the agreement in October 2012 for the construction of 5,000 housing units and the then

minister also reviewed the contract scaling down the number of units to some 1,500 units and later to 1,024 units after another review in 2016. The first phase of the project, with 1,500 housing units, commissioned by Mr John Mahama in the 2016 have been left unused. The project which was also intended to reduce the country’s massive housing deficit is seated on a 300 acre land with one to three bedroom apartments for low-income earners.