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He explained that, at the time, it was getting close to elections so President Mills gave his executive approval for the project to be laid before Parliament.
This comes after the National Communications Director of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi, said E.T. Mensah supervised the preparation and execution of the agreement with Construtora OAS Limited, the contractor of the project.
The Attorney General is currently on the heels of the former Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Alhaji Collins Dauda; his successor, Dr. Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, and three other persons, over the project.
The aforementioned are accused of wilfully causing financial loss to the state for allegedly misapplying the state’s $200 million for the affordable housing project.
In response to the Attorney General’s suit, Sammy Gyamfi said: “It is instructive to note, that the Minister of Works and Housing at the time, Hon. E.T Mensah informed Parliament during the debate on the approval of the loan facility, that the 5000 housing units will not be built at a go, but rather over a period of time, that is, in phases. This is captured in black and white in the Parliamentary Hansard of 23rd October, 2013.
“Subsequent to the grant of Parliamentary approval, the Ministry of Works and Housing under Hon. E.T Mensah prepared and executed a Works Agreement with the Contractor for the project, Construtora OAS Limited. It is in the Works Agreement that government decided to build the 5000 housing units in 4 phases.
“The consultant for the project was AESL. Note that Parliament had already approved the loan Agreement, and therefore the Works Agreement which was an issue of implementation by the Ministry was not required to be approved by Parliament.”
However, E.T. Mensah, who served as Minister of Works and Housing, noted that the Saglemi Housing project was “President Mills’ project”.
Speaking on the Good Evening Ghana show, he described Sammy Gyamfi’s response as a statement filled with lies.
“We were lucky that over the years, the government had acquired some land to build houses for the people; the housing committee [I formed] selected Saglemi…We had to prepare to go to Parliament [to lay the offer before the house],” he said.
“It was close to elections at the time and so, the President decided that he will approve it, thus, give executive approval to the proposal so that we take it to Parliament, that was how come President Mills gave executive approval; that was his project.”
The former Ningo Prampram MP added: “Everything is not true, it is a pack of lies. You [host of the programme] should have alerted me, it's would have come with the handover notes.
“The project started when the STX became a fiasco. It was Mills’ project, he was the one who signed and gave the approval.”