President John Evans Atta Mills has admitted that he owns land at Ofankor near Pokuase in the Greater Accra Region, but has however, denied that the land was given to him, because he was government official at the time.

Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle newspaper yesterday, President Mills said fifty plots of land were given to the University of Ghana, Legon, way back in 1976. The University then asked the lectures to ballot, and he was lucky to have been given plot 7 to purchase. “It is therefore not true that I got the land because I was serving in government,” he said. A new list, which has been made available to the media, indicates that member of both the current and former President Rawlings’ regime have all benefitted from the sale of state lands.

The list includes name such as President Mills, the Foreign Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, the Chairman of the Council of State, Prof. Kofi Awoonor, former Inspector General of Police (IGP), Peter Nanfuri, the late Edward Kojo Salia and the current Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, among others. President Mills told The Chronicle that contrary to the falsehood being peddled against him by his political opponents, he never bought the land based on any political colour, but purely as lecturer.

He contended that his colleague lecturers such as Prof. Ivan Addae Mensah, Prof. Kwame Arhim, Prof. Gyandoh, Prof. Dodoo, and many others, who are still alive, and purchased some of the fifty plot allotted to Legon, would attest to the fact that it was not given to them because they were members of government, but as lecturers. “I was not a member of the ruling Party of the day. I was not a government appointee, as people are claiming,’ hes said, explaining that it was unfortunate that people were woefully failing to critically examine the situation, and trying to make unnecessary comparisons.