Parliament approves loan for Ghana Air Force

Page 35, March 24, 2008
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
IT took Parliament more than six hours intensive debate to approve a $31,577,500 loan agreement between the government and Societe Generale (SG) of Paris for the purchase of two aircraft as part of a strategic plan to re-equip the Communication Squadron of the Ghana Air Force.
Speaker Mr Ebenezer Sekyi Hughes had to call for a headcount to decide on the matter after the voice vote had produced no clear winner. After the headcount, a majority decision of 118 votes against 63 won the day before the House adjourned for the Easter break.
  Within a period of more than six hours, the Speaker and his First and Second deputies, Mr Freddie Blay and Alhaji Malik Alhassan Yakubu, respectively took turns to steer the affairs of the debate.
   In addition to the loan from SG, the government is providing $62 million from its budget as part of its contribution for the purchase of the two aircraft.
  The Majority, led by the Minister of Defence, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, argued that it was necessary to acquire the two aircraft for the Air Force, while the Minority, led by its Spokesperson on Defence and Interior, Alhaji Abubakari Sumani, contended that the two planes were not the types urgently needed by the Air Force.
 Alhaji Sumani said the House had to deal with the unconstitutionality of the contract entered into by the government since Ghana paid five per cent of the total amount involved soon after the Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, appended his signature to the contract.
   He said instead of the government buying the two aircraft for the cost of $105,150 million, it would have been better for the country to have purchase the four other aircraft requested by the Air Force at a total cost of $90,731,969.
   He wondered why the government was bent on purchasing the two planes to the exclusion of the other four, which he considered as very important for use by the Air Force.
  Alhaji Sumani noted that Ghanaians were baffled as to why the president was in a hurry to purchase a presidential jet when he was about to leave office and called on all Ghanaians who cared for the nation to reject the use of scarce state resources for the purchase of a presidential jet.
   Replying, Mr Kan-Dapaah explained that the choice of purchasing the aircraft was made according to the recommendation made by the Ghana Air Force and not because the government was bent on buying those types of aircraft.
   He added that the average age of the various aircraft of the Air Force was 30 years and said the country therefore had no choice but to purchase new ones in order not to ground the operations of the force by 2010.
   Mr Kan-Dapaah stated that the Ghana Air Force had always operated a Presidential Jet, adding that "It is not possible to conduct modern day business without a presidential jet".
 He said it was unfortunate that the Minority was creating an impression that the economy of the country would come to halt when the aircraft were purchased, explaining that by the terms of the agreement the country would pay $1.856 million this year towards the payment for the two jets.
   "We should have the courage now to buy the aircraft to save our presidents from travelling to neighbouring countries to connect flights to their destinations to transact business on behalf of the state," he said.
   When he took his turn in the debate, the Minority Spokesperson for Finance, Dr Ben Kunbuor, argued that the $62 million contribution by the government should not be allowed to be part of the committee's report since it was not a loan.
  He called for the rejection of the committee's report because the House would be endorsing an illegality.
   When the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Nii Daku Adu Mante, attempted to alter the original $43.15 million loan as indicated on the Order Paper to $37.15 million, the Minority rejected this, saying that the chairman had no power to do that without the consent of the other members of committee.
   The Speaker at that stage stood the motion down and asked the leadership of the Joint Committee of Finance, Defence and Interior, which deliberated on the loan, to go back and confer in order to adopt a compromise stand on the matter.
   When they came back to the House, they had agreed to decouple the $62-million government contribution from the loan agreement, while the $43.15 million loan agreement had been reduced to $31,577,500.
  So deafening was the voices of both the Majority and Minority when the Speaker called for the endorsement or otherwise of the report that he resorted to the headcount to settle the matter.