Tuah-Yeboah questions AG’s basis for dropping Saglemi case

Former Deputy Attorney General Alfred Tuah-Yeboah has expressed shock at comments made by Attorney General Dominic Ayine over the decision to discontinue the Saglemi housing project case, questioning the basis on which the case was described as weak and poorly investigated.

His reaction follows Mr Ayine’s remarks on Newsfile on Saturday, January 10, where the Attorney General said the case was “poorly investigated” and that the charges were “poorly thought through,” citing what he described as a disconnect between the alleged financial loss and the evidence.

Speaking in an interview on Channel One TV on Sunday, January 11, Mr Tuah-Yeboah said he was “very surprised” by the Attorney General’s position, suggesting that Mr Ayine had either not reviewed the full case docket or had chosen to misrepresent it.

“I am very surprised that the Attorney General will make such a statement, and I am inclined to believe that he has either not gone through the case docket at the Attorney-General’s Office or he has gone through it and decided to spew untruths,” he said.

Mr Tuah-Yeboah defended the integrity of the investigation, stressing that the case was built after what he described as a “painstaking investigation” by the State Security Agency. He explained that because the matter involved large-scale construction, an independent technical assessment was commissioned to establish the actual value of work done on site.

“If you look at the Saglemi docket, it was built after a painstaking investigation by the State Security Agency. Because this matter involved construction, there was the need for an evaluation of the project to be done,” he noted.

According to him, a letter was written on April 3, 2020, to the Ghana Institute of Surveyors to conduct an on-site valuation and determine the percentage of work completed. The institute’s report, submitted on February 21, 2022, revealed significant discrepancies between payments made and work executed.

“Out of the 5,000 houses that were supposed to be built, only 1,506 were on the ground. Even out of the 1,506, only 666 were substantially completed, 74 were at the foundation level, and 778 were structurally completed,” he explained.

Mr Tuah-Yeboah further highlighted alleged financial irregularities uncovered by the valuation, noting that while the contractor had received substantial payments, the value of work on site was far lower.

“The most interesting and intriguing bit is that this contractor had been paid over $196 million. However, when the evaluation was done, the total work on the ground was valued at about $67 million. The report also indicated that the state would need more than $32 million to complete the 1,506 houses,” he added.

He maintained that these findings formed a strong evidential foundation for the prosecution and questioned the justification for abandoning the case.

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