President Akufo-Addo spent £15,000 per hour on a 10-day overseas trip. President Akufo-Addo has been accused of extravagant spending by North Tongu MP Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, despite the country’s economic difficulties.
According to Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa’s research and estimates, the President spent £345,000 on flights during his nine-day tour to France, Belgium, South Africa, and returned to the nation, equating to GHc2,828,432.80 at the current currency rate.
“According to Flightradar24, the G-KELT aircraft flew the President from Accra to Paris on May 16th, covering a distance of 6 and a half hours.
On the 23rd of May, the President was airlifted from Paris to Johannesburg for 11 hours.
On a 10-day international trip, Akufo-Addo spent £15,000 per hour – Okudzeto AblakwaThen, on May 25, it was a 5-and-a-half-hour flight from Johannesburg to Accra. With a total flight time of 23 hours and a rate of £15,000 per hour, it came to a whopping £345,000. That’s a whopping Ghc2,828,432.80 at the current exchange rate.
“President Akufo-Addo, who has been a prominent advocate for debt forgiveness on the world stage, has been imposing new regressive taxes back home, with the rationale that the economy isn’t in good shape,” he claims.
At a recent opinion article disseminated to the media, Okudzeto Ablakwah observed, “Unfortunately, he constantly fails to lead by example in a moment of austerity where his administration is appealing to struggling public sector workers to decrease salary rise expectations.”
“Unfortunately, he continuously fails to lead by example at a time of austerity where his government is calling to struggling public sector workers to reduce wage rise expectations,” Okudzeto Ablakwah said in a recent opinion piece sent to the media.
He called this “outrageous” because Ghana already has a presidential plane that is in fine operational order.
“This might have cost Ghana less than 15% of such 2.8 million Ghana Cedis if the President had flown on the Presidential plane instead,” he continued.
“The irony is that President Akufo-Addo indulged during this superb luxury whereas on the way to France to petition President Emmanuel diacritical mark for debt forgiveness. President MacRon, needless to say, does not travel in such opulence,” he said.
Such extravagant spending at such an era of austerity, according to Okudzeto, sends the incorrect message not just to the foreign powers that the President was pleading with for debt cancellation, but also to Ghanaian civilians who have been pushing for #FixTheCountry in recent times.
“As a result, I have submitted an urgent question in Parliament to compel the Akufo-Addo government to be answerable to the Ghanaian people on this topic and, eventually, to prick their conscience to halt this outrageous profligacy at this time of tremendous economic hardship,” he added.
The President’s nine-day working tour was part of an attempt to re-engage with the rest of the world following the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic, and to show Ghana as a nation with an excellent business-friendly environment and promising economic prospects in the future.
