Documents filed on behalf of the Attorney General alleges that Consultancy Services under the Saglemi Housing project were awarded three times, costing the taxpayer an estimated $13m.

First, in April 2013, the Architectural & Engineering Services Limited (AES Ltd), which had the consultancy contract, decided to subcontract its Services to Vito-Hugo-Coordenacaoe Gesto De Projectos (VHM) for a period of 24 months.

A maximum amount of $2.9m was to be paid VHM, while AESL was to take not more than $2m.

In April 2015, while VHM and AESL are said to have been providing the said Services, the Ministry of Works and Housing is alleged to have entered into another contract for consultancy services with Ridge Management Solutions DEC-LLL (RMS).

RMS was represented by its director and majority shareholder, Nouvi Tettey Angelo. This was to span a period of three months at a contract sum of $5.6m.

This was at a time RMS was not registered in Ghana as a company. However, the AG’s office says its investigations revealed Mr Angelo is also a Director of VHM awarded the same services two years earlier.

In August of 2016, then Minister of Works and Housing Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah is alleged to have entered into yet another consultancy agreement with RMS, this time christened “marketing implementation services” for a sum of $2.5m.

The AG notes that all this while, these Consultancy Services were being performed by AESL and VHM as per the agreement signed in 2013.

This the AG claims had been extended at various times by Mr Agyeman-Mensah and Ziblim Yakubu, former Chief Director at the Ministry.

The AG concludes that further payments were made to AESL, VHM and RMS far more than the $5m stated as consultancy fees under the original Housing project agreement.

These payments the AG claims were without any evidence of work done contrary to the contract's requirement.

Former Ministers of Works and Housing, Collins Dauda and Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, former Chief Director Ziblim Yakubu and two others are facing 52 charges for various roles said to have caused the state to lose money it borrowed to construct 5,000 housing units. Only 668 units are said to have been completed, with the AG describing them as “not habitable”.