A former Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing (WRWH), Alhaji Collins Dauda, was yesterday granted self-recognisance bail by the Accra High Court (Criminal Division 4) after he appeared before it for allegedly causing $200 million financial loss to the state in the Saglemi Affordable Housing project.
His alleged co-accused, Messrs Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, a former Minister of Works and Housing from April 2015 to January 2017 and Alhaji Ziblim Yakubu, the Chief Director of the ministry from July 2009 to April 2017 and two others were granted bail totaling $322 million for allegedly issuing false certificate and dishonestly causing loss to public property.
The other accused include Andrew Clonacas, the Executive Chairman of Construtora OAS Ghana Limited, and Nouvi Tetteh, the Director and the majority shareholder of Ridge Management Solutions DWC-LLC. He is also the director of VHM Ghana Limited.
They will make their second appearance before Justice Comfort Tasiame (Presidng), on October 13, 2021.
Appearing with Mrs Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, the Director of Public Prosecution, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, asked the court to consider the amount for which the accused were standing trial before they were admitted to bail.
Mr Dame, however, conceded that Alhaji Dauda who is the current Member of Parliament (MP) for Asutifi South be granted self-recognizance bail subject to depositing of his passport with the registrar of the court.
Justice Tasiame granted Agyemang-Mensah and Alhaji Yakubu $65 million or its cedi equivalent each, with three sureties each.
The court held that one of the sureties must be a civil or public servant. They were also ordered to deposit their passports with the court registrar.
Mr Clonacas was granted $179 million with 3 sureties in addition to proof of two landed properties in Accra.
As part of his bail condition, the businessman was ordered to deposit his passport with the court registrar.
Mr Tetteh was admitted to $13 million or its cedi equivalent with three sureties, one of the sureties must be civil or public servant living in the greater Accra Region. He was also ordered to deposit his passport with the court registrar.
Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, counsel for Agyemang-Mensah and Alhaji Yakubu, reminded the court that the facts as narrated by the prosecutor did not represent evidence against the accused unless they pleaded guilty.
He, therefore, prayed the court to admit his clients to bail under the conditions considered by the police, the fact that the man is 72 years old, that he was a former Minister of WRWH and therefore, not a flight risk.
Mr Twumasi Ankrah argued that Clonacas, his client had complied with investigators since the commencement of the case.
Ziyerli Agbambila, counsel for Mr Tetteh said the circumstances of the case relating to the accused was simply that the accused was facing two counts of issuing false certificate and two counts of dishonestly cashing loss.
He asked the court to take into account that the accused is a single parent of two children and has a fixed place of abode.
The facts according to Mr Dame are that, when Alhaji Dauda took office on February 27, 2014, without Parliamentary approval, the accused reviewed the original agreement and signed the First and Restated Agreement with Construtora OAS, represented by its Chairman.
He said even though a total amount of $196,428,891.66 had 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, was about $64,982,900.77.
Mr Dame said that 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 had been developed.
The prosecutor told the court that investigations further revealed that only 668 housing units were completed by the contractor.
The Attorney-General stated that these houses were, however, not habitable, adding that not a single house under the project had been sold and the facility remained unpaid, resulting in huge financial loss to the State.
Mr Dame told the court that in August 2012, then President, John Dramani Mahama, granted executive approval to the MWRWH for the construction of 5000 affordable housing units for sale to workers through mortgage arrangements provided by the Ghana Home Loans to be implemented by Construtora OAS Limited.
The A-G said the project was to be funded by a Buyer’s Credit of $200 million provided Messrs Credit Suisse International (Credit Suisse).
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
