Nana Yaa Jantuah, the general secretary of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), says she supports the government’s proposal to purchase a new presidential jet.
Jantuah also said a debate on the matter is vital and there must be dialogue to decide whether it is prudent to purchase a new presidential jet for the country.
Speaking on The Asaase Breakfast Show on Friday (1 October), she said: “… I’m wondering: why this noise? Me, I’m for a new aircraft for the president. I’ve always been for it, because it is not for the sitting president. It is for a president – so, whoever is the president is going to use it – and it is for the nation as well.
“So, if we actually need a new aircraft for the president, we should go through the right process to acquire it …”
Jantuah added, “I learned it’s in the domain of the Ghana Armed Forces. So why have we made it political? … I’m told the aircraft can be used by soldiers for peace missions …”
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The government says it has started the process of acquiring a new state aircraft that will serve as the presidential jet, among other functions, the director of communications in the Office of the President, Eugene Arhin, has confirmed.
In June this year the Minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, while answering a question on the floor of Parliament posed by the MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, about the condition of the country’s existing presidential jet, noted that there was a need for Ghana to think about acquiring a new plane.
At the time, Nitiwul suggested that the current Falcon 900 EX-Easy aircraft, used by the president, is no longer fit for purpose.
According to him, the presidential jet – a Ghana Air Force Falcon X-Easy – could carry only 11 passengers minus the crew and it often had to do “undesirable refuelling stops at unintended destinations” during long-haul flights, causing inconvenience to both the president and the host countries.
To avert such inconvenience, he said, the current use of a chartered private jet was critical, as the plane could carry more passengers and fly far longer distances without making stops to refuel.
“It is interesting to note that the armed forces of Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Eswatini, Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Uganda, Kenya, Congo (DR), Morocco, Equatorial Guinea, just to mention a few, all have a Boeing or Airbus jet of that capacity to serve as strategic airlifts,” he told Parliament in June.
Addressing the presidential press corps on Monday (27 September) at Jubilee House, Arhin announced that the government has initiated a process that will lead to the acquisition of a new aircraft to augment the Ghana Armed Forces fleet.
“The Minister for Defence has made it clear that the government has decided to buy a bigger jet to save us from all these troubles.
“I won’t want to go into details. I am sure when the Minister for Defence has the opportunity to give further information as to what the government is doing with respect to that, I am sure he will do that. I know for a fact that the government is already in the process of acquiring a bigger jet for use,” Arhin emphasised.
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