Dangerous mindset – Ablakwa blasts Nitiwul over Akufo-Addo’s 3 months no private jet claim

Opposition Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has descended heavily on the Minister for Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, for stating that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has not travelled with a private jet in the last 3 months.

This was after the minister sought to reiterate that the president has taken cognizance of the current economic challenges facing the country and is making sacrifices to help in the management of the situation.

But reacting to the minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa who has been accusing the president of satisfying his taste for profligacy said Dominic Nitiwul showed a dangerous mindset in his assertion.

According to the MP, it did not have to take an economic crisis for the president to show prudence in his choices.

“An inaccurate claim and a dangerous mindset.

“Good leaders don’t wait for hardships to be prudent and caring; they actually have the foresight to appreciate that their profligacy and extravagance eventually leads to the kind of excruciating hardship Ghanaians are currently facing,” the MP said in a Facebook post.

In a report by Citinewsroom, the defence minister is said to have indicated that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his appointees are gravely concerned about Ghana’s current economic challenge, contrary to assertions in the public.

He noted that because of the current economic challenge, the president has for the last three months not travelled using a private jet.

Nitiwul reiterated that the president recently used a private jet in Belgium only because he had no option.

“Sometimes when the President is going for a particular program, the difficulty arises when he is supposed to arrive at a particular time and is delayed by using public transport.”

“However, the President has not used a private jet in the last three months. He uses a commercial jet. I know that as a fact. We all recognise the situation we find ourselves in, and everybody must bring down his expectations. The only exception was when he was in Brussels, he used Air France, but he was having difficulties getting an aircraft to continue his journey,” he said.

The defence minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Bimbilla, said that the appointees of the president are also contributing their quota to ease the financial burden on the government by taking a salary deduction.

“The Ministers will not live the same way they do. Ministers’ salaries have been slashed by 30 percent…The government is slashing expenditure,” he added.

Meanwhile, government has been under intense criticism following a decision to engage the International Monetary Fund for financial support.

Amidst accusation of economic mismanagement, the government has been cited for irrational use of state resources including the use of luxurious private jets by the president for foreign travels.