‘Ablakwa overpriced each charter flight by $450,000’– NPP claims

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) says the Foreign Affairs Ministry paid far more than the market rate for charter flights used to bring home Ghanaians who fled xenophobic violence in South Africa.

According to the party, documents released by the Ministry under Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa show each of three charter flights cost US$750,000, a total of US$2.25 million to airlift about 900 evacuees.

The NPP says industry checks put the cost of chartering a comparable aircraft from Ethiopian Airlines or Air Tanzania at between US$180,000 and US$300,000 per flight.

At the top of that range, the three flights should have cost no more than US$900,000, the party’s figures suggest, leaving a gap of at least US$1.35 million.

Speaking at a press conference, NPP National Communications Director Dennis Miracles Aboagye said the reported cost meant the state spent about US$2,500 to fly a single passenger from South Africa to Ghana.

“The Hon. Minister for Foreign Affairs is telling us he paid $750,000 for one airplane. Just one,” he said.

The party said the charters account for GH¢ 27,183,700, or 55 percent of the GH¢ 49,721,786 spent on the evacuation of 1,964 Ghanaians, yet the Ministry has provided no invoice, no contract and no name of the operator, only a statement that the flights were arranged.

The NPP claimed it has been informed that the first three flights were operated by Ethiopian Airlines through an intermediary, a Vanderpuye, and that each may have been billed at close to US$300,000 above its actual cost. It further asked whether the Ministry’s Chief Director had recently requested fresh invoices for those flights, months after they were flown.

“Publish the original Ethiopian Airlines invoices for all three flights,” Aboagye said. “If the figures are honest, the original invoices will settle this in a day.”

The party is demanding that the Ministry name the charter operator, show how it was selected under the Public Procurement Act, and submit the full evacuation accounts to an independent audit by a firm of international standing. It has given the Minister seven days to lay all records before Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ablakwa has maintained that all documents and signed sheets are available and that no money is missing from the evacuation exercise.

Source: Ghanaweb