NPP challenges Okudzeto's $750k charter flights, cites $180k–$300k industry rate

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has questioned the cost of charter flights used to evacuate Ghanaians from South Africa, insisting the US$750,000 per flight reported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is more than double the industry rate.

Addressing a press conference, the party's National Communications Director, Dennis Miracles Aboagye, said the Ministry's own documents put the cost of each charter at US$750,000, with three flights carrying about 900 passengers. That, he said, works out to roughly US$2,500 per seat for a single trip from South Africa to Ghana.

"Our checks from the industry place the maximum cost of chartering a flight from Ethiopian Airlines and Air Tanzania between $180,000 and $300,000," Aboagye said. "Strangely, the Hon. Minister for Foreign Affairs is telling us he paid $750,000 for one airplane."

According to the NPP, GH¢ 27,183,700, about 55 percent of the GH¢ 49,721,786 total evacuation cost, was spent on chartered flights, yet no invoice, contract or operator name has been provided. "Emergency explains the urgency. It does not excuse the missing receipts," he said.

The party claimed that information available to it indicates the first three flights were operated by Ethiopian Airlines and arranged through one Vanderpuye, and that each may have been billed at close to US$300,000 above its true cost.

It also asked the Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, to confirm whether the Ministry's Chief Director recently asked Vanderpuye to issue fresh invoices for flights operated months earlier, and if so, why.

The NPP called on the Minister to publish the original Ethiopian Airlines invoices for all three flights and to disclose how the operator was selected under the Public Procurement Act.

"If the figures are honest, the original invoices will settle this in a day," Mr Aboagye said. "If they are not produced, Ghanaians will draw their own conclusions."

The charter costs are among several concerns the party raised over the evacuation of 1,964 Ghanaians who fled xenophobic violence in South Africa. Others include payment registers it says do not match the declared headcount, conflicting figures on an ASKY airline invoice and receipt, and two versions of a letter inviting the Auditor-General to review the exercise.

The NPP has given the Minister seven days to lay the complete records before Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee and is calling for an independent audit by a firm of international standing.

It said it would otherwise back the Minority in pursuing the matter on the floor of Parliament, petition the Auditor-General, and pursue further remedies under the Right to Information Act.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has maintained that all records are available and that no money is missing.

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