The Ministry of Information and Media Relations has denied widespread reports that President John Dramani Mahama may have used a US plane reportedly leased to his brother’s Company, Engineer and Planners Limited, for official travels.
The plane, owned by a small community bank in Utah, had parked last week at Tehran’s airport, provoking questions about why an American plane was in Tehran, the capital of a country under US sanctions.
A New York Times report on Saturday quoted unnamed former Federal officials as saying “they believed that the plane has been used to transport President Mahama before”.
The paper said the unnamed officials based their “conjecture partly on the plane’s known itineraries from photos posted online.”
The report also said, “One image captured the plane flying to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where President Mahama spoke in September. The Ghanaian president was also in London last October when the aircraft was spotted leaving there for Accra.”
But, a Deputy Minister in the Mahama government issued a strong denial of the claims on Tuesday.
“I can state on authority that President Mahama has never travelled on the aircraft in question,” Felix Ofosu Kwakye said in a CitiNews interview.
“Indeed, the claims in the New York Times that the aircraft in question was spotted in Davos and in London on occasions that the President travelled to these destinations is [sic] at best speculative,” Mr Kwakye, a Deputy Minister for Information and Media Relations, said.
He went on, “The President has at his disposal a presidential aircraft which he uses for his travels. In the event that the aircraft proves to be inadequate… other arrangements are made.”
On Friday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that the plane had been used to transport top Ghanaian officials as part of a broader push to expand cooperation between Ghana and Iran.
But Mr. Kwakye told CitiNews Iran’s claims are equally misleading.
“Government has not sent any official delegation to Tehran on the aircraft in question” he said.
Citing an E & P statement issued on Saturday, the Deputy Minister said, “The delegation that went to Tehran went there in their private capacity. It was not a travel sanctioned by government and we need to put it on record that no such delegation was sent from Ghana.”
But, he said, “Government has good relations with Iran and therefore has no difficulty if Ghanaian citizens go there to transact business”.
By: Evans Effah/citifmonline.com/Ghana