![](https://dailystatesman.com.gh/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Prez.-flight.jpg)
The Office of the President says the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, is engaged in vile propaganda in respect of the President’s foreign trips, following his inaccurate claims on the recent trip to Brussels and Kigali.
The Presidency in a statement noted that President Akufo-Addo did not charter a luxurious flight to those countries, as claimed by the MP.
It noted that all of President Akufo-Addo’s 12-member delegation travelled on commercial flights as well.
Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa posted on Facebook on Friday that the President was spending a whopping €480,000.00 (GHC4.1 million) on the flight.
“For President Akufo-Addo’s current trip to Belgium and Rwanda, beginning Sunday the 19th of June, 2022 to attend the 15th Edition of the European Development Days Forum in Brussels, Belgium, and the 26th Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations in Kigali, Rwanda, we can confirm a conservative bill of €480,000.00.
“The 480,000 Euros which is derived from 21 hours of total flight time plus other industry charges works out to some 4.1million Ghana Cedis at current exchange rate,” the MP claimed in the post.
The fact
But a statement signed by the Director of Communications at the Office of the President, Eugene Arhin, said: “the President travelled to Belgium onboard an Air France Commercial Flight (AF0584), which departed Accra on Sunday at 7:20 pm, made a stop-over in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and then continued to Paris.”
“Upon arrival in Paris, President Akufo-Addo and his delegation travelled via train to Brussels to attend the European Development Days event, where, on Tuesday, 21st June 2022, he was a keynote speaker,” it added.
The Presidency further clarified that, having received a notice of an intended strike in the Belgium aviation sector, President Akufo-Addo had to travel via charter flight to Kigali because of flight cancellations.
“Indeed, prior to the President’s departure from Accra to Brussels on Sunday, June 19, Ghana’s Mission in Brussels had sent notice of an impending strike in the aviation sector in Belgium to the Presidency and to the Foreign Ministry. Indeed, on June 17, unionised Brussels Airline workers, including pilots and crew, had announced their decision to embark on a strike beginning Thursday, June 23, to Saturday, June 25. This was going to result in the cancellation of over 300 flights, including those from Brussels to Kigali.
“With the Presidency having been given prior information regarding the strike action before the President’s trip to Brussels, the option to travel using a direct commercial flight from Brussels to Kigali was not available. Thus, the decision was taken to charter a flight for President Akufo-Addo and his entourage to make the eight hour and forty-minute flight (8h 40min) flight from Brussels to Kigali on Wednesday, June 22,” it clarified.
The Presidency noted that the decision was made to ensure that the President Akufo-Addo would make it to Kigali for the ground-breaking ceremony for the commencement of work on the Pan-African vaccine manufacturing project, involving Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal and BioNTech SE, the German biotechnology company as well as attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).