The Member of Parliament for Asutifi South, Hon. Collins Dauda has been granted self-recognizance bail after he made the first appearance to an Accra High court to defend criminal charges levelled against him by the Nana Addo government.
He is standing trial with four others for wilfully causing financial loss to the state to the tune of $200m.
Appearing for the first time in court today, Hon. Collins Dauda pleaded not guilty to all 14 charges against him.
According to Godfred Yeboah Dame who presented the case to the court, Collins Dauda who was a minister of works and housing under the John Mahama administration together with the four accused persons misappropriated an amount of $200m which was approved by parliament for the construction of 5000 housing units at Segleme, Accra.
He said instead of the 5000 housing units, Mr. Andrews Clocanas, Executive Chairman of Construtora OAS Ghana Ltd delivered just 1300 of which only 600 were habitable as of 2017.
He added that the value for money audit concluded that the work done was worth $68m.
Lawyers for the five defendants argued that their clients were in the process of delivering the entire project in a three-phased arrangement when the government abrogated the contract in 2017.
They said they were almost done with the first phase which comprised some 1500 housing units at the time the contract was terminated.
After hearing the arguments of both the prosecutor and the accused, Justice Comfort Tesiane granted four of the accused persons, a total of $257m bail with three sureties each.
They included Kwaku Agyemang Mensah, Alhaji Ziblim Yakubu, Andrews Clocanas and Nouvi Tetteh Angelo.
They were also directed to submit their Ghanaian passports to the court registry.
However, for Hon. Collins Dauda who was the first accused, the court granted him self-recognizance bail with three sureties one of whom must be a public officer.
The court also directed him to submit his passport to the registry as well.
His lawyers argued that the MP will need his passport to travel but the court held that he can always apply for it anytime he wanted to travel.
The case has been adjourned to October 13.