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| Prez Mills: Gov’t ready to eat STX humble pie |
12/24/2011 |
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President John Evans Atta Mills has conceded that he has been let down by developments militating against the STX housing project, but asked Ghanaians not not lose hope yet.
Many have posited that the likelihood of the much talked about government’s affordable housing project not materializing is high, but President Mills told an Accra-based radio station, Radio Gold Friday morning, that his government would be the first to concede that the project has been a failure.
“Let me say that we’ve had problems with the STX, at the moment we are trying to see how we can save that project, but I want to assure you that where we think that we can’t move forward we are prepared to eat humble pie and tell the whole world that this thing, you know, it''s not what we thought it will be but we are trying to see what we can.”
The woes of the project began with a boardroom wrangling. Unable to handle it internally, the two parties resorted to the courts where the issue has since been raging. Recently the Korean counterparts rejected a settlement package proposed by the Ghanaian partners GKA Airports to pave way for the commencement of the project.
Worse still, the GKA Airports this week lost a suit filed against its counterparts at the Commercial court in Accra on technical and procedural grounds. They were seeking the court to declare the Koreans as non shareholders of the project.
Obviously unhappy with the development, President Mills admitted that the delay in executing the STX project has caused much disappointment to his government.
President Atta Mills, in January 2011, cut sod for the commencement of the STX project, which was given Parliamentary approval in September this year for the initial construction of 30,000 houses for security agencies at $1.5 billion amidst Minority boycott.
“It is a matter of disappointment that since we went to parliament and got the approval we have not initiated [the project]. I think that we must be honest enough to admit that.”
However, he said the government is getting “all kinds of assurances”, and was hopeful the project would succeed.
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