A veteran journalist and Managing Editor of the defunct Gye Nyame Concord newspaper, Alfred Ogbamey has disputed claims that the Vice President’s residence project was abandoned 13 years ago, arguing that the construction was halted in 2017 under the administration of former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and then Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
According to him, records of the project will show that it was already under construction in January 2017, when then Vice President-elect Dr Bawumia publicly questioned its reported cost of $13.9 million.
The vetran journalist gave this clarity reacting to the lingering issue of the abandonment of the Vice President’s residence in a statement on his Facebook wall.
Mr Ogbamey cited comments made by Dr Bawumia during a visit to the Action Chapel International’s Good Corporate Governance Initiative in January 2017, where he criticised the cost of the project located on Switchback Road at Cantonment in Accra, behind the Police Headquarters.
“Can you believe in Ghana we are building a house to house our Vice President, and this house is supposed to cost $13.9 million?” Dr Bawumia was quoted as saying.
He reportedly questioned the scale of the expenditure, asking: “I mean what sort of a house is this supposed to be? Is the gate made of gold? The pavement of gold? The blocks of gold?”
Dr Bawumia also questioned what alternative development projects could have been undertaken with the amount reportedly allocated to the residence, including the construction of boreholes.
Mr Ogbamey argued that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) subsequently used an investigation into the cost of the project as a basis for halting the development during its eight years in government.
He further contrasted that the handling of the Vice President’s residence project with expenditure associated with the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam project.
According to him, more than $98 million was spent on the Pwalugu project, while an additional $12 million was paid to an Indian contractor despite the project not being completed.
