Presidency asks Ablakwa to resist urge for propaganda
Akufo-Addo travels with train from Paris to Brussels
Ablakwa claims Akufo-Addo’s latest foreign trip cost the Ghanaian taxpayer over GH₵4 million
Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has stated that he will team up with three other NDC MPs to push for the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, to admit a motion to probe President Akufo-Addo’s ‘luxurious’ foreign trips.
Ablakwa, who has since 2021 been tracking the president’s use of ultra-luxurious jet charters, failed in a bid to use Parliament to get the cost of these presidential charters.
The cost of the president’s private jet charters was labeled a National Security issue when Minister Albert Kan-Dapaah appeared before Parliament last year.
However, it does appear that the latest cost of the president’s charter – reportedly about GHC4.1 million – has renewed the MP’s energy to push for more accountability on behalf of Ghanaians.
In a June 24, 2022 interview on Accra-based Joy FM, Mr Ablakwa mentioned that the NDC MPs had a pending motion demanding a bipartisan probe into the cost of Akufo-Addo’s travels.
He said that the cost of the travels cannot be shrouded in secrecy on claims of National Security.
“We are not buying these attempts to hide under the cloak of National Security and that is why one of the motions pending in Parliament is a full-scale bi-partisan enquiry. My colleagues the Honourable Zanetor Rawlings, James Agalga, Ato Forson and myself have a pending motion and that is one of the things we will do.
“As I said in my statement earlier, I had thought that the president was a changed man and he’s decided to walk the straight and narrow path of righteousness but clearly he intends to continue to just milk us dry and just suck the blood out of everybody.
“We will go back to that motion, we will respectfully plead with the Speaker that this motion should be tabled, let’s have this bipartisan enquiry because this cannot continue. Just within the last 18 months if you put together the president’s foreign travels, it’s now in the regions of about GH₵40 million,” Mr. Ablakwa said.
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