The Odorkor residence of Mrs Naa Morkor Busia, wife of Dr K. A. Busia, Prime Minister of Ghana from September, 1969 to January, 1972, has been renovated at the cost of ?735,000,000.00 to the taxpayer. This is ?235,000,000.00 more than the estimate of ?500,000,000.00 proposed for the renovation works.
Naa Morkor Busia's Odorkor residence is one of the projects for which a total of ?17.2 billion was set aside by the NPP Government under a Special Projects Account. That Account was not approved by Parliament, according to the Audit Report, and neither was the expenditure reported in the Ministry of Works and Housing's end of year expenditure account. Simply put, that expenditure was hidden from Parliament, the people of Ghana and the IMF/World Bank. Thus even though the original ?500,000,000.00 earmarked for the works was itself illegal, its ballooning into the figure of ?735,000,000.00 is what has added to the mystery.
Ghana Palaver has sighted the AESL Interim Payment Certificate No. 1 for the Project which was for an amount of ?234,357,886.00 made out in favour of the contractor, Messrs. Erdmac Limited of P.O. Box 12848, Accra-North, and which shows a total contract sum of ?735,000,000.00.
That such expenditures can be incurred without Parliamentary approval and at a time when social and economic infrastructure are crying for rehabilitation is a reflection of the seriousness with which the NPP Government regards Parliament and the Constitution, and also a demonstration of a very skewed sense of priorities. It will be recalled that Dr Busia's residence was confiscated to the State by the Acheampong regime following the 1972 coup d'etat that overthrew the Progress Party (PP) Government after former Supreme Court Justice J. N. K. Taylor, then a High Court Judge and chairing a Commission of Enquiry, determined that Dr Busia acquired that house and other assets and properties unlawfully.
Dr Busia, who preferred to stay in that house instead of the official Osu Castle residence when he was Prime Minister, had the house renovated and refurbished at great cost at the expense of the taxpayer. The erstwhile PNDC Government deconfiscated the house and ordered its release to Mrs. Naa Morkor Busia on an "as is—where is" basis, but the NPP Government, as one of its most urgent priorities on assuming office, decided to rehabilitate, renovate, refurbish and refurnbish it for Mrs. Naa Morkor Busia. In stark contrast, the first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, whom the PP Government accused of looting the country's treasury and amassing wealth and assets (even as they are doing to the NDC) is not known to have left behind any private property worth the name. As such, his wife and children have never benefited from similar State largesse.
