The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has indicated that government is complicating issues by suppressing facts and information regarding the US flagged plane which was spotted at Tehran’s airport in Iran.
“When you try to suppress information or if you deny information without giving us the actual convincing facts, you tend to complicate the matter,” the Executive Director of the GII, Vitus Azeem stated.
A report by the New York Times over the weekend stated that a US flagged plane owned by a small community bank in Utah was mysteriously parked at Tehran’s airport in Iran adding that the said plane had been leased by a Ghanaian mining company, Engineers and Planners owned by President John Mahama’s brother.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry is also reported to have claimed that the plane had been used to transport top Ghanaian officials as part of a broader push to expand cooperation between the two countries.
The report has sparked criticisms as critics believe Ghana has breached international aviation rules as the plane is said to have landed without approval.
Government has vehemently denied any ties with the US plane and has described the New York Times’ report as speculative adding that the President has never used the plane in question.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Tuesday, Mr. Azeem maintained that Ghanaians have the right be worried and suspicious because government is not telling the whole truth to Ghanaians.
He urged government to mention the name of the public official who was reportedly on the plane because if that it not done, “you will not be able to clean people’s minds of that perception.”
Mr. Azeem insisted it was imperative to establish whether the said official was on a private trip or on an official trip. “If it was leased for one public official to go with a business delegation, that raises the questions otherwise, we need to know if that public official was alone…”
He suggested that steps should be taken to get the name of the said public official from the government of Iran because “if they came out with the initial information, they should have a list of the people that came and why they came to that country but we probably do not have that capacity to get that information.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mahama Ayariga has revealed the said public official “went there in his private capacity and so when people go on their private capacities, it’s a matter for them.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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