Minority holds press conference on withdrawal of STX housing motion

Accra, July 15, GNA - The Minority in parliament on Thursday said the strength of their argument in parliament on Wednesday on the Suppliers Credit agreement between Government and STX Ghana Limited, a Korean Company had found favour with President Mills as he had asked for its withdrawal.

Speaking at a press briefing in parliament, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Minority Leader, said the minority was not interested in derailing the good intensions of the government adding, however, that the directive by the President does not mean that his administration was a listening one.

He said the minority was willing to support housing agreement for the security services looking at the poor accommodation situation they were faced with but unfortunately the majority mounted a defense of the statuesque.

Mr Mensah Bonsu noted that the agreement had a lot of critical issues which needed to be considered. "The happy news is that the President has seen sense in the various arguments by the minority that all is not well for the project.

He said the agreement had been given executive approval by cabinet and brought to parliament but after the inconclusive debate President Mills realized that there was need for some diligence.

According to the Minority Leader, Mr Alban Bagbin, Minister of Works and Housing Water Resources said the off-taker agreement which had 90,000 houses and the unit cost was a joint venture agreement and should be looked at before graduating to off-taker agreement.

He said the off-taker agreement said the amount was 1.525 billion cedis, adding that there was a lot of difference.

He noted that the minority would fully participate in the various committees, adding that this was the third time issues of such nature had occurred in parliament, referring to the Petroleum Bill, Commodity Swap and the current STX one.

Mr Joe Ghartey noted that nobody would understand why the Minister carried a document which had some blank portions in it to parliament.

He said the concern of the Minority was that the number of houses was 200,000 at a cost of 10 billion Dollars with 90,000 for government and 30,000 for security services, and queried "So why should we adopt a partial agreement costing 1,525,443,468.00?"

Mr Ghartey explained that the joint venture was for the 200,000 houses whilst the off-taker was for 90,000 and the suppliers credit agreement for 30,000 houses.