African Games Village: A $16 million legacy of waste and questionable spending

Judith Elinam Tsekuma is angry.

“It’s been on our hearts for far too long!” she exclaims from the balcony of her room on the second floor of the Hilla Limman Hall of the University of Ghana.

“We’ve been waiting for this opportunity because we didn’t know who to talk to…”

Tsekuma, a fourth-year student here, has just been asked by The Fourth Estate if the air conditioner in her room is working.

The question surprisingly breaks a dam of emotion, provoking a flood of frustration.

She is chatty and charismatic, assertive and acerbic. She speaks in a no-holds-barred manner, and daringly says “quote me! use my name! I need to speak up”.

Her friends, Mohammed Semira Adongo and Freda Oforiwaa Nti, back her with a “yes! yes!” chorus, complete with gesticulations.

“They’ve installed air conditioners in every room yet no one is able to use them,” Tsekuma continues.

“They have been disconnected. The mother boards have been removed so even if you turn on the switch it doesn’t come on.”

This is not a story about a Ghanaian student crying foul over a dysfunctional air conditioner, because, really, an air conditioner to the average Ghanaian student in a public university is a luxury.

To understand why her rant is significant, even relevant, one needs to have the context. There is an intriguing backstory.

The Hilla Limann Hall is part of a group of four hostels collectively referred to by students as the ‘Diaspora’. The other hostels in the group are Alexander Kwapong Hall, Elizabeth Sey Hall and Jean Nelson Aka Hall, all located within the same enclave.

Ahead of the 2023 African Games, hosted in Accra, these hostels – containing 400 rooms each and an estimated student population of 6,400 cumulatively – were upgraded by the government to serve as the official Games Village for the continental multi-sports competition.

Collectively, they became home to the athletes and officials who participated in the March 2024 Games.

The upgrade included internal and external works on the hostel buildings, spanning replacements, enhancements and installations.

Temporary tents were also erected on the compound to serve as a cafeteria, complemented by four re-purposed shipping container structures serving as washrooms for the facility. The cafeteria has a 1,500 meter-square sitting area, with a 500 meter-square operational service area.

According to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, these works cost $16 million in total to execute, part of $195 million the government spent on infrastructure for the Games.

Through a right-to-information request, The Fourth Estate obtained a copy of the contract between the ministry and Mawums Limited, a Ghanaian company that was awarded the deal to undertake the upgrade.

The document offered a breakdown of the expenditure on the Games Village, which amounted to a total contract sum of $16,066,961.

Almost a year after the Games, there is a looming legacy problem – a potential story of worry and wastage.

At least 1,600 air conditioner units across all four hostels have become white elephants – hanging idly on walls, at risk of rotting away. As are the water heaters.

They are not being used because the University of Ghana Enterprises Limited (UGEL), managers of the hostels, have had them disconnected over concerns that students won’t be able to pay for their usage.

“Our hostel fees were increased by over a thousand cedis after the African Games because they said it was due to the renovations,” Adongo, Tsekuma’s friend, explains.

“We can’t see any proper renovation. They didn’t even fix all the sinks and the toilet bowls weren’t changed. Most of the fans in the rooms weren’t working before the Games, and haven’t worked since the Games,” Nti adds.

Over on the other side of the Diaspora compound, located between the Kwapong and Sey Halls, the cafeteria too is currently empty and abandoned. It has not been in use since the Games. The industrial air conditioners there are gathering dust. The main halls of the cafeteria and its washrooms are locked.

When The Fourth Estate visited the offices of UGEL to inquire about the amount of work that went into the upgrading of the hostels, as well as the future of the new amenities, the company declined to give a detailed comment.

“Everything was done by the government,” an official simply said, sternly. “Ask the government.”

Ministry’s reactions

When The Fourth Estate contacted the Ministry of Youth and Sports, its Public Relations Officer, Ken Annan, redirected the reporter to UGEL as they are the managers of the facilities.

When The Fourth Estate reached out to former Sports Minister Mustapha Ussif, he declined to comment, explaining that issues about the organization of the Accra 2023 African Games are currently the subject of an investigation by the National Investigations Bureau (NIB).

 “An investigation has been opened into the subject by a state agency and I do not intend to make any comments on the topic until further notice,” Mr Ussif told The Fourth Estate. “I will therefore reserve any comments on the subject matter until the investigation by the NIB is concluded.”

But as the contract sum would indicate, the government spent an equivalent of close to GHC 245 million on the upgrade.

“It’s too much!” Judith says. “You’ve heard what the so-called renovations were. Do you think it is worth that amount?”

Is it?

“It can’t be,” says a quantity surveyor speaking on condition of anonymity to The Fourth Estate.

“The amounts involved are definitely over the top,” the surveyor continues. “It’s suspicious. I tell you, $16 million can build two hostels with change.”

Specifically, the installation of the air conditioners in question across all four hostels cost $594,164, including fixing and operational accessories

An additional $143,360 was spent on the installation of water heaters, which are also currently not in use.

There are many detailed line items regarding the upgrade of the hostel rooms that raises eye brows among the students The Fourth Estate spoke to.

This is because they claim they have not seen any significant improvement in those areas in their experience of living in the hostels after the Games.

“What did they really do?” Tsekuma quizzes. “Tell me, because we can’t see anything!”

“The detailing in the contract is very insufficient, especially for the expensive items,” says the quantity surveyor.

“$16 million is a lot of money to have been spent on existing structures,” he adds. “Do you know what $16 million can do?”

Indeed, $16 million – or something just around that – can do something significant.

Just over 3km away from the University of Ghana is the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).

UPSA has two ten-floor hostels which accommodate 3,250 students. Contextually, those two hostels, according to a report on the university’s website in 2022, cost Ghc 90 million (a little over $13.6 million at the then prevailing rates) to construct.

That is $17.6 million in 2024, adjusted for inflation.

Sports journalist Fentuo Tahiru, who covered the African Games in Accra, is convinced that $16 million spent not to build, but to upgrade the University of Ghana’s already existing Diaspora is “definitely not value for money, even for a lay man”.

For him, the Akufo-Addo government’s claim that it wanted to save money by renovating hostels instead of building new ones was flawed.

“There is also a big legacy problem here,” Tahiru says. “When Mozambique hosted the Games in Maputo in 2011, they built a Games Village and converted it to residential facilities for citizens afterward and in effect addressed a housing deficit. They had a plan, yet look at our situation: our Games Village did not address any problem, but rather ended up creating a huge one.”

Editor’s note: Part two of this story will deal with the value for money issues around the University of Ghana Stadium.