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| Mr E.T Mensah |
THE government has initiated moves to pursue STX Korea for the recovery of all government’s investment in the company, as well as assets it provided for the execution of the abandoned STX housing project.
It has also decided to repossess, with immediate effect, all lands allocated to the company for the housing project.
In this regard, the Attorney-General has been directed to carefully study details of the STX contract and give advice on claims that the government could make out of the deal.
The Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Enoch Teye Mensah, announced this at a press conference in Accra yesterday.
The STX housing project, which had been expected to provide some 30,000 housing units for the security services, encountered setbacks as a result of disagreements between the Koreans and their Ghanaian partners after the government entered into an off-taker agreement with STX Engineering and Construction for the commencement of the project.
The project was to be implemented in three components and financed by a concessional facility of $1,525,468,000 secured with a sovereign guarantee by the Ministry of Finance.
The contract, signed in 2009 and reviewed in 2010, was at the time expected to be the biggest investment made by the government in the housing sector.
On January 27, 2011, President John Evans Atta Mills, at an impressive ceremony, cut the sod for the commencement of the project at the Tesano Police Training School, which was designated to be the first beneficiary institution with 1,980 housing units.
Ten long months after that ceremony, the project was still fraught with problems resulting from the Koreans and their Ghanaian partners engaging in a turf war over ownership and control.
The financial and partnership differences led to a consequent mistrust between the two partners, leading to a string of court actions over counter-accusations of fraud and forgery against each other.
Although the minister would not state publicly how much the government had invested in the defunct project and whether the entire contractual deal would be abrogated, he said steps were being taken to reposess the 15 sites which were made available to the company for the construction of the houses.
According to him, the government had since set up a housing project management committee to review all proposals on housing and come up with clear guidelines and criteria for selecting potential investors.
That, he said, would allow the committee and the Ministry of Finance to undertake due diligence before any further dealings.
“The ministry has so far received and reviewed 40 proposals, out of which four have been identified as credible, and the ministry has initiated negotiations with them for the construction of affordable houses for government workers,” Mr Mensah said.
He said since STX had breached the terms of the contract between the two parties, and in view of the importance the government attached to the project by facilitating a series of mediations between the two contending parties to no avail, it was forced to take appropriate steps to protect the interest of Ghana.
“In situations where there are no options open to the government, it cannot allow a single entity which cannot put its act together to hold the nation to ransom,” he reiterated.
Mr Mensah said the government would pursue all available options to ensure that the sovereign interest of Ghana was not compromised in any underhand dealings.
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