The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Members of Parliament have questioned the basis for the government to cut the sod for a $56.8 million National Affordable Housing Project and the Revised Redevelopment Scheme, which are yet to be approved by Parliament.

The housing project is an EPC/Turnkey contract agreement between Ghana and Douja Promotion Groupe Addoha.

The Minority Ranking Member of Parliament's Works and Housing Committee and MP for Dormaa West constituency, Vincent Oppong Asamoah while addressing the Parliamentary Press Corps on Tuesday, said the Minority had a lot of issues with the project.

He said the NDC MPs have therefore, decided to distance themselves from the sod-cutting.

"We have a lot of issues as Minority group in Parliament. We all know that we have over two million deficits in housing delivery that we should all help the government to address,” he said.

“…And fortunately, for us, there is an agreement between the government of Ghana and a foreign company which necessarily has to come to Parliament for approval or ratification, but there are a whole lot of issues that have to be sorted out before this approval could be made.”

Mr Asamoah said when the Committee met on July 31, the members could not come to an agreement for very good reasons.

He noted that the Government had provided state lands to foreign companies and local ones to put up affordable housing units for Ghanaians and that the Minority was demanding a valuation report of those lands.

The Dormaa West Constituency MP said the government was going to have a 40 per cent stake in the affordable housing project and the foreign company was providing about $57 million.

"I know the foreign company is going to get about 41 acres of land, so do all the other local companies. So we are demanding they give us the valuation report and cost of infrastructure that the Government is going to put in," the Minority Ranking Member stated.

"Even though they were putting pressure on us to approve it, the Ministry has not provided us with the answers."

He appealed to the Government to ensure the completion of housing projects which were started by previous governments such as the Saglemi and Asokore Mampong Affordable projects.

A Member of the Works and Housing Committee, and NDC MP for Ho West Constituency, Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah said the Minority wanted to know the cost of the road construction, water and electricity connection to the project site, which was the Government's commitment to the project.

Mr Sampson Ahi, a Member of the Works and Housing Committee, and NDC MP for Bodi, for his side said fundamentally, the Minority caucus was not against the housing project but were only demanding that the right thing be done.