The NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for Fanteakwa, Hon. Kwabena Amankwa Asiamah, says they (Minority) have finally been vindicated for their opposition to the signing of the STX Korea Housing Project deal following the crippling boardroom battle between some key stakeholders in the execution of the project.
STX Engineering & Construction Ghana Limited entered into a contract with the government of Ghana for the construction of 200,000 houses within a period of five years, estimated at $10billion. The Minority underscored the need for due diligence to be done before any agreement on the deal was approved. However, in August last year, Parliament approved an initial off-take agreement for the construction of 30,000 housing units for the security forces at a cost of US$1.5 billion.
Speaking as a panelist on Peace FM�s premium show �Kokrokoo�, Hon. Asiamah accused the Majority of failing to heed to their repeated calls for due diligence and subjecting the deal to proper scrutiny before signing it.
��the opposition has been vindicated�we said it was going to be Trojan horse. We said it several times but they didn�t listen. Most often we run and leave the baton behind. Because the deal was right before them, they just simply went ahead with it�and here we are now�,� he said.
To him, had the government of the day been a bit more circumspect, the needless brouhaha surrounding the STX deal could have been avoided. Whiles asking that the new agreement be brought before Parliament for consideration, he was also critical of the fact that government did not first offer the contract to local real estate developers.
�If the government has sourced for funds for local contractors, President Mills could have completed the work former President Kufuor started� if we had given some of the local contractors sovereign guarantee, the situation would have been different�,� he added.
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