The Member of Parliament for Tema East, Daniel Nii Kwartei Titus Glover has slammed President John Mahama’s penchant for travelling out of the country.
According to the MP, the country isn’t yielding any fruits from the “excessive” foreign travels by the President.
Over the last couple of weeks, President Mahama has been to the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway and Burkina Faso.
Prior to this, he has made several travels and visited countries like the United States, Turkey, China, Dubai, Japan and a host of African countries as President.
The Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Edward Doe Adjaho on Thursday read another communication from the Presidency informing the MP’s of President Mahama’s two day visit to the Vatican on Sunday.
The President is expected to return from the official visit on Tuesday, November 11, 2014.
The Vice President, Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur who is expected in the country on Friday after a four day visit to India, is expected to act in his stead.
The Vatican City is the smallest internationally recognized independent state in the world by both area and population.
The state is ruled by the Bishop of Rome—the Pope.
The President’s itinerary was not stated in the notice.
But the Tema East Legislator has hit hard at the President and described his trips as not being beneficial to the country unlike former President J.A. Kufuor who attracted international investors during his record travels out of the country.
“…..When they were in opposition, they lambasted and incriminated former President J.A Kufuor that he’s been travelling too much, they don’t see the essence of his travelling but they have forgotten that when Kufuor was coming, he had something good, there were so many things. So if the President travels, he should be able to bring something for the people to benefit, but it is like he is going on a tour, enjoying himself, changing his clothes and all that. I think that we cannot stop him from travelling but the issue is that we should have some benefit from the travels,” he told Live News’ Parliamentary Correspondent Ekow Annan.
Mr Titus Glover further noted that in spite of the huge per Diems and entourage, the frequent trips abroad by the President have not yielded any positive results for Ghana.
“All the international travels that he goes, we expect that when he is coming he has some goodies in his hand, but he always returns with an empty hand. We are not seeing much from his travelling, honestly am not seeing much. At the end of the day we should have something good in return that we’ll use in assessing all the travelling that he has under taken. At the end of the day your people should have some benefit in return from all these travels, what we are asking is that, what comes out of his travels?” he quizzed.
He underscored that “He (Mahama) claims we are cash trapped, the little money we have, when you are going he doesn’t go alone. He goes with additional staff, with security and all that. It’s a huge cost to the state. He is the President, he can tour as much as he can but the bottom line is that we should benefit from it. He keeps globetrotting all over the place.”
However, the Member of Parliament for Wa East, Ameen Salifu took a swipe at his colleague and described his utterances as “completely irresponsible on his part.”
He sharply disagreed with the assertion that the travels of the President hasn’t inured to the benefit of the country.
“You go there for investment purposes, bilateral agreement, once you are invited to those countries you’ll meet the business community, to see what they can do for the country.”
Continuing further, Mr Salifu said “the yielding of fruits doesn’t happen the very day you travel to those countries……..it materializes over time. So for them to think that the President will go to Italy tomorrow, and then the following day, Italians are coming here to invest, no it doesn’t work that way. Remember people are coming to invest their money into the economy, and they have to make sure the economy is stable, and also ensure that the economy is working,” he told Ekow Annan.
