As President Akufo Addo pays a working visit to Norway, it has emerged that the Chancery that his Foreign Affairs Ministry was willing to fork out US$ 12 million for about two years ago is magically priced at US$7 million on the open market.
The property located on Sigyns Gate 3, 0260 Oslo is listed on property pages as costing 70 million Kroner (approximately US$ 7million).
“What Ghana was going to pay US$12.2million some 14 months ago is now on the market for others at US$7.4million (a whopping US$4.8million difference). This is at a time analysts say properties on the Norwegian real estate market have been appreciating in value,” noted Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwah, the Minority Spokesperson of Foreign Affairs.
In a statement released today, he said; “Clearly, another vindication of the Minority and an important victory for the kind of parliamentary oversight which protects the public purse. It is my prayer that the President takes up my appeal to him to personally verify these latest facts while in Oslo, as he will return to Ghana with a new resolve to depart from his rather unhelpful and widely criticized practice of hurriedly clearing his appointees.”
Last year, Whatsup News came into possession of an agreement submitted to Parliament by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, indicating that the Ministry had already accepted US$ 12.5 million asking price of the property.
The contract document was signed by the Ghanaian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as far back as November 22, 2018, and was signed by Kristian Haug of Jongbru AS in Norway. The offer letter was valid until November 30, 2018.
The attempt to buy that property at the stated amount sent ripples through the country because the property was bought for less than US$ 4 million around 2017 and could not have appreciated to US$12.6 million within a year in a plush community where the property was averaging US44 million.
Whatsup News has learnt that the one who bought the property for onward sale to Ghana at US$ 12.5 million has links with some officials of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the outrageous pricing was noted by Norwegian financial newspaper, Finansavisen.
The newspaper which raised red flags claimed that the original owner of the property, Ms Olsson, sold the property in August 2017 to an unknown buyer for NOK31,000,000, the USD equivalent of $3,598,108.00.
Critics, including US-based newsmagazine owned by a Ghanaian, AfricaWatch had linked this “unknown buyer” to the ruling government in Ghana.
According to AfricaWatch however, the Akufo Addo administration used a 69-year-old point man and Norwegian businessman Kristian Arvid Haug. Huag is reportedly a close family friend of the First Family and had been shuttling between Accra and Oslo through London with some of the President’s relatives to meet with Norwegian oil companies.
Incidentally, it is this same Haug who is the shadowy owner of the two buildings that the Akufo Addo Administration allocated approximately US$ 12 million to be used as the Ghanaian Chancery and Ambassador’s residence in Norway. It turns out that the asking price that Huag was offering Ghana for the buildings was over 200 per cent (about US$ 8 million more than the real price) above the standard real estate rate for that building in its peculiar location in Oslo.
Mr. Haug apparently became a convenient link to the property and had moved to buy it from its original owners in preparation to sell to Ghana. Arvid Haug is said to have bought the property from one property developer, Age Ringdal in the winter of 2017 for 31million Norwegian Kroner ($3.6m) before miraculously getting a deal from Ghana at a price of 100million Norwegian Kroner ($11.62million) in less than a year.
Snooping by AfricaWatch revealed that the lurking Arvid Huag featured prominently in the valuation of the building. Apparently, the appraisal was done in November 2018 by one Jon Ugland and interestingly, it was ordered by Husprojeck AS, the parent company of Jongbru AS that sold the property to the Ghanaian government.
As it turns out, Arvid Huag owns 50 % of the shares in Husproject AS and he is also the Chairman of Jonsbru AS. “Who is it that will go buy a property and take an appraisal ordered by and conducted for the seller at face value?” AfricaWatch questioned.
The status of Ghana’s interest in the property is currently unclear as the controversy that characterised the revelation forced the Akufo Addo administration to take a cautious approach.