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The Member of Parliament for North Tongu has launched a move to drag the Minister for Defence to the House to explain why the Falcon 900 EX Easy Presidential Jet was not used for President Nana Akufo-Addo’s trip to France.
The Minister, he said, will also be tasked to make full disclosures on the entire cost of this alternative travel arrangement and how much it cost the Ghanaian taxpayer.
“We will push strongly for these urgent questions to be responded to especially when the Falcon is in a pristine condition and had been used by the President on his trip to Uganda just days before he travelled to France.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa indicated that he has filed an urgent question and that the Minority is demanding answers for what he described as an ostentatious and opulent mode of travel used by the President.
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Speaking on the matter in an interview in Parliament, the North Tongu MP indicated that the luxurious chartered flight that the President used instead of the Falcon, the Airbus ACJ320neo, which is the most luxurious aircraft offered by the charter company charges US$15,000 per hour.
The trip to France and Belgium and then to South Africa, he said, cost the Ghanaian taxpayer approximately GH¢2.8 million in flight hours in addition to additional charges.
According to him, such an extravagant and opulent luxury trip to beg for debt forgiveness is unconscionable and condemnable and stressed the Minority will demand answers.
Mr. Ablakwa insisted that the Presidential Jet could have served the same purpose and save the taxpayer approximately 85% of the funds spent on the luxurious charter flight.
“We insist that the Falcon was available for this trip. The President used it for his five and half hour trip to Uganda and back only days before embarking on his journey to France.”
“We cannot continue this way and how do you think Western leaders will perceive African leaders? No wonder they have very little respect for a lot of African leaders,” he added.
He questioned how many challenges in the country the GH¢2.8 would have solved and stressed, “You see the congestion and the dilapidation in the country; the difficult conditions under which our students are learning; the no-bed syndrome in the hospitals.”
“Doctors are complaining of lack of basic medical equipment that they don’t have and President himself embarked on this trip to go and beg for debt forgiveness and this is how he goes to beg.”
“Even the person he went to beg the debt forgiveness from does not travel in such ostentation and opulent manner,” he said.
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Frontpageghana.com/Ghana
