By Eunice Hilda A. Mensah
Accra, July 09, GNA – The Ministry of Works and Housing, through the Technical Working Group on the Saglime project has received biddings from five companies who expressed interest in the venture to complete 1,506 units of houses at the Saglime enclave.
They are Broll Ghana Limited, Dredge Masters Titanium, Masilton Group, Quam Investment LMI Holding, and Afro-Arab Properties Limited.
Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister of Works and Housing, who supervised the opening of the proposals, at the close of the bidding process said the previous government contracted a loan of 200 million to construct 5,000 units.
“Currently all the 200 million dollars have been paid to the original contractors, but only 1,506 partially completed units are available and those units are inhabitable due to unavailability of water, electricity, and sewage, among others,” he stated.
Mr Nkrumah said from 2017 the government had been taking steps to bring finality into the matter by getting private sector operators to invest in the project with an estimated budget of 100 million dollars to complete the unfinished buildings and then operationalize them.
“We have gone through the process all the way from Atta Akyea’s and Asenso Boakye’s era. On April 17 this year, we requested proposals and now, we have received five bids,” he said.
He said the Ministry had already requested the Public Procurement Authority to help in selecting an independent evaluation entity and that four accounting firms had been pre-qualified by the Authority.
“Out of these organisations, we will select one by the close of Wednesday, July 11, 2024, and we will hand all of these bids to the independent evaluation entity so that they do the evaluation and submit a report to the Ministry by seven days, which will state the preferred bidder,” he explained.
Mr Nkrumah said the Ministry, for that matter, the government was committed in accordance with its transparency policy in public transactions and also proactive to the disclosure of the right to information and therefore would publish online all of the bids.
“We will also publish the evaluation report so that every Ghanaian and everybody interested in this transaction will know the bids that came in and how these bids were evaluated as well as the preferred bidder.
He said the next steps would be to enter into negotiation with the preferred bidder and after conclusion, the Ministry would get Cabinet approval and hand over the Saglime project for work to resume to complete the 1,506 units of houses.
GNA