Flagstaff House ready before Kufuor left office - Mpiani

Speaking at a short ceremony to mark the relocation, President Mahama announced that he would move into his official residency in a couple of months, after completion of ongoing works on the project.

 But speaking on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile last Saturday, Mr Mpiani said most of the criticisms were misplaced.

 According to him, the project had two main components- one for offices and the other being the residency for the President- “and at the time the facility was being inaugurated by President Kufuor” in 2008, “the project was fully completed”.

“The Office building was complete and allocations were made,” Mr Mpiani explained.

The former chief of staff criticised Dr Don Arthur, then a member of the transition team in 2009, for making comments to suggest that work on the building lacked quality.

“Dr Arthur saw marbles and came out to tell the whole world they were cracks, when it took a mason to tell him they were marbles,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, has blamed the raging debate over the project on the lack of systems to handle it.

Dr Akwetey said little efforts were made to strictly follow procurement procedures and get local engineers involved to partner their Indian counterparts.

In a reaction, a former Presidential Spokesperson, Mr Kwabena Agyei Agyapong, described as untrue claims that due processes were not followed when putting up the magnificent structure.