Speaker denies selling parliament land to London based hotelier

The Speaker of Parliament Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye is denying selling parliament land to a London based hotelier Quant International Property Group.

The statement clarified that parliament intends to construct a parliamentary hotel to cut down on the money parliament spends on hotel accommodation for MPs.

The statement said: “The attention of Parliament has been drawn to a publication in the Herald newspaper on Friday, 13 of July, 2018 alleging that the Speaker of Parliament is seeking to sell Parliament land for a hotel. The fact that the front page story placed its caption in the form of a question showed they were not certain of their facts and were putting out the publication to deceive. Why did they not come to verify in Parliament at all?

“The office of Parliament will like to correct the erroneous and baseless impressions created in the publication. No land belonging to Parliament will be sold. The Speaker alone cannot take any decision whatsoever regarding Parliament’s property without the Parliamentary Service Board. Parliament has not disposed of any property and is still considering how best to employ public/ private partnership for the interest of Parliament.”

“The said proposal to construct a parliamentary hotel is to cut down on the amount of money Parliament spends on hotel accommodation for MPs and other officials. Several countries, including neighbouring Cote d’lvoire, South Africa, Canada etc have such a facility. There will be conference rooms etc in such cases.”

According to the Herald report, the speaker is “trading a parcel of a juicy land with a London-based private hotelier, Quant International Property Group to construct a 250-guest room hotel facility and be paying the legislature some money.”

The paper further alleged that the arrangement with Quant International Property Group, is based on sole sourcing, as has been the case lately with several state institutions.