• He indicated that the NPP government should rather be blamed
• Collins Dauda and four others are facing 52 counts of causing financial loss to the state
Sammy Gyamfi has described the case against Alhaji Collins Dauda as frivolous and a vindictive attempt by the Akufo-Addo led administration to create a convenient excuse for their abandonment of the Saglemi Housing project.
According to him, the NPP government should rather be blamed for causing financial loss to the state.
Gyamfi explained in a statement that, “the case against Hon. Collins Dauda and others is frivolous and a poor attempt by the vindictive Akufo-Addo-Bawumia government to create a convenient excuse for their abandonment of the Saglemi Housing project.
“If there has been any financial loss to the State at all, then it has been occasioned by the people who have recklessly abandoned and supervised the deterioration of a 90% complete project for almost five (5) years.
The Akufo-Addo-Bawumia government should stop persecuting innocent people and rather take urgent steps to complete the project which they have left to rot. The Ghanaian taxpayer deserves better.”
Alhaji Collins Dauda and four others are facing 52 counts of criminal charges of willfully causing financial loss to the state which has been filed by the Attorney General (AG), Godfred Dame.
The accused persons are said to have misapplied the state’s $200 million to pay for less than 1,500 affordable housing units at Saglemi, instead of the 5,000 units parliament granted approval for.
Responding to suit, Sammy Gyamfi said, “Hon. Collins Dauda was not responsible for either raising IPCs or effecting payment for work done. The project consultant (AESL) who raised all the IPCs hasn’t been accused or charged by the Akufo-Addo government for any wrongdoing.”
He argues that the Attorney General cannot claim that Alhaji Dauda short-changed the state by building less than 1,500 housing units instead of 5,000 housing units.
“For emphasis, the claim that Parliament approved an agreement for 5,000 housing units, but that was reviewed to about 1,500 houses without recourse to Parliament, is false. Firstly, at no point did government indicate that it was going to stop the project at building 1,500 houses only, which is just Phase 1 of the project,” Sammy Gyamfi stressed.
Sammy Gyamfi, National Communication Officer, NDC