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The Herald�s continuous investigations into the activities of owners of Waterville Holdings BVI Limited, and the two Italians behind it, Don Ernesto Taricone and Adreas Olandi, have led to revelations that Ghana has not only lost 47 million Euros, but a juicy state land located in Accra. The juicy state land opposite the 37Millitary Hospital in Accra which is about 25 acres, has been taken over by one of Taricone�s numerous companies, Trassaco Estates Development Company for a project called Switchback Park. This is the state plot ex-President Jerry Rawlings and the Managing Editor of The Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt , have separately raised concerns over, asking both President/s John Evans Atta Mills and John Dramani Mahama to halt, but those appeals have all fallen on deaf ears. The place is to be converted in plush houses, luxurious hotels, expensive shopping malls among other commercial activities in the mist of state security concerns, that the project which would have high rise buildings, could compound an already serious security risk at the Presidential palace, Flag Staff House. Insiders told The Herald that the huge state land, was given out to Taricone by the previous Kufuor government, while the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), ordered to go into a business partnership with Trassaco Estates Development Company. What is more interesting is that the land was said to have been undervalued by the previous government at a paltry sum of US$17 million, and handed over to SSNIT as its contributions to the business arrangement. A visit to the site last week showed another of Don Ernesto Taricone�s companies Michelletti busy at site with huge trucks and other earthmoving machines, setting the stage for the commencement of the plush houses, luxurious hotels and expensive shopping malls. The plot has been cordoned and has sign post at the site with artist impression of the supposed project, vaguely mentions Company by name Switchback Development Limited, as the employer, Diagonal Projects Africa as Employer Representative. Trassaco Estates Development Company, Lifedrms and TEDC-JV identified on the sign post as a Turkey Contractor. It is unclear, whether the Kufuor government did any due diligence on the various companies presented to SSNIT before opting for the business arrangement and dolling out the prime state land, which ex-President Rawlings would rather see developed into an extension of the 37Millitary Hospital, to serve both soldiers and civilians. Complicity and failure on the part of state officials in the Attorney General Department to check the backgrounds of some companies and so-called contracts, they claimed had been entered into with the state, have led to the country dishing out massive sums of money under fraudulent claims. Taricone�s Michelletti and Waterville Holdings, made separate financial claims from government and got paid by state actors who failed to do due diligence or connived with the Italians to make money. Armed with the fraudulent claims of Waterville Holdings, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, also got GH�51 million from the government. They were later to be described as fraudulent claims and attempts are in the process by the Attorney-General and Minister Justice to get back the monies. Supreme Court ruled the claims of the offshore Waterville Holdings as an �alliance to create, loot and share� Ghana�s resource asking for the return of the money. The Herald last Friday revealed that Don Ernesto Taricone and the Milan-born Andrea M. Orlandi are Executive Chairman and Managing Director respectively runs another company by name Royal Aluminium Systems, located near the Pantang Hospital Road off Aburi-Madina Road in Accra with other offices at Labadi adjacent the Trade Fair and Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. Royal Aluminium System Ltd is on the same premises with Michelletti, which Taricone and Orlandi transferred their so-called stadia construction contracts to from Waterville Holdings. Additional findings made on the Milan-born Andrea M. Orlandi revealed that he has been a professor of Business Strategy and Company Management at the Lugano University School. The Managing Editor of The Insight, Kwesi Pratt, has repeatedly called for cancelation of the Switchback Park to no avail, arguing the intended development could worsen the traffic situation on the Tetteh Quashie- 37 -Accra road. Meanwhile, an Accra High Court has granted an interlocutory injunction to restrain Ernesto Taricone, the Chief Executive Officer of Trasacco Estates Development Company Ltd, and three others from entering certain portions of land the government leased to the Nungua Stool at Mmai-Dzor in August, 2010. The order followed a motion on notice filed by the Nungua Stool in Accra to restrain the defendants from entering the land in dispute or having anything to do with it, pending the determination of the substantive suit. The other defendants in the suit are Pamela Nkansah, Fiore Trust and the Lands Commission. The plaintiff in the case, is seeking a declaration that the consent to assignment dated June 20, 2011, purportedly executed by the Nungua Stool to Pamela Nkansah was a product of fraud and, therefore, null and void. It is also seeking a declaration that both deeds of assignment dated January 5, 2011 from Pamela Nkansah to Fiore Trust and Taricone were fraudulent and, therefore, null and void. The plaintiff is furthermore praying for an order directed at the Lands Commission to expunge from its records the consent assignment dated June 28, 2011 in favour of Pamela Nkansah. According to the writ, the plaintiff is also seeking an order for the Lands Commission to expunge from its records the assignment dated January 5, 2011 from Pamela Nkansah to Fiore Trust and Taricone, as well as an order for recovery of the land in dispute. In his statement of claim, the NunguaMantse, King OdeifioWelentsi III, said, in August 2010, the President of the Republic of Ghana, acting through the Lands Commission, granted a 974.53-acre lease of land to the Nungua Stool. It said the lease provided that the stool shall not part with possession assign or charge the land without the written consent of the Lands Commission. It said the lease also provided that no mortgage assignment sub-lease or other dispositions of the land shall be of any legal effect and no such instrument or right, title or interest derived shall be registered by the Lands Commission, except certified by a scheme manager appointed by the Nungua Stool. The statement said the plaintiff had not executed any application for consent to assign in favour of Pamela Nkansah, nor had he authorised the scheme manager to certify any assignment for the defendant. It said, however, that a search conducted at the registry of the Lands Commission in June 2012, revealed that certain portions of the land in dispute had been registered in the name of Pamela Nkansah, Fiore Trust and Taricone by the Lands Commission. It contended that the consent to assign dated June 28, 2011 in favour of Pamela Nkansah and the deeds of assignment dated January 5, 2011 in favour of Fiore Trust and Taricone were all a product of fraud and or forgery. In its ruling, the court, presided over by Mr. Justice George Atto Mills-Graves, observed that there were more questions to be tried at the hearing of the substantive suit as to the part played by the Lands Commission in getting the other defendants registered as assignees of the disputed land, in the face of the �stoic denial by the plaintiff that he has never made any assignments in favour of any of them�. More to come!