President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has alleged that, while President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was flying in a luxurious chartered aircraft which cost the country $14,000 per hour to the UK, an unknown person was using Ghana’s presidential jet, the Dassault Falcon 900-EXE, to France, Lusaka and Kumasi.
Speaking on Friday’s edition of Good Morning Ghana, the North Tongu MP indicated that since the presidential jet flew to these three places, it implies that President Akufo-Addo had no excuse to spend the taxpayer’s money frivolously.
Okudzeto Ablakwa noted that upon his tracking of Ghana’s Presidential jet, it revealed that, “while the president was in the UK with his chartered aircraft, somebody used our presidential jet to France; it flew nonstop on July 19 and returned on July 21. Who used the aircraft [Presidential jet] to France?
“The further tracking I did while the president was with this chartered aircraft LX-DIO, the presidential jet again was spotted in Kumasi on August 28…, so who was using the presidential jet? This confirms that there is nothing wrong with the presidential jet,” he said.
Ablakwa observed that the presidential jet was also spotted in Zambia’s capital city Lusaka on August 24.
He said, the jet which had earlier been stated that, it could not fly nonstop to France was being used by some unknown persons while the president was on a state visit to other countries in a chartered luxurious aircraft which is a burden to the Ghanaian taxpayer.
“It is just clear that, insensitivity has taken over, I mean let’s chill and they can say all they want to say and we can’t be bothered, we don’t care and it is wrong. If you do the computation, just for this aircraft alone, 41 hours by $14,000 that is $570,000 at current exchange rate GHC3.8million,” Ablakwa claimed.
Dominic Ntiwul had earlier told MPs that, Ghana’s presidential jet, the Dassault Falcon 900-EXE, had some challenges which will make it ‘not fit for purpose’ for the president to use on his international trips.
Responding to a question on the airworthiness of the aircraft, the Defence Minister stated there are some challenges with the current presidential jet such as the limited passengers it can carry, the number of times required for refuelling on a trip and luggage capacity among others, makes the aircraft not fit for purpose and the president cannot even take his shower on the aircraft.
“This aircraft will carry a load of 11 persons minus the crew. When this aircraft is travelling to the eastern part of the USA or Asia, it will not load a crew of more than eight plus the luggage. So it depends on where it is going. Secondly, I have also said the aircraft has to do refuelling stops, and also in this COVID-19, when you are travelling to multiple destinations like the president’s recent travel, the Falcon couldn’t have been taken because he would have had to do technical stops which are not desirable, and when he is travelling with more than 20 people like he has been doing for business trips that brought huge sums of money for this country, he will need more than just a Falcon, otherwise, the others would have to go a day ahead before the president to prepare themselves.
“In fact, the president would also have to go a day ahead because no president can shower in this aircraft. He cannot move from this aircraft straight into a meeting,” Ntiwul stressed.