Member of Parliament for Akuapem North, Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah-Adjei, has denied reports that she was flown into the country late last year from the United States to come and vote on the Electronic Transactions (E-Levy) Bill.
The issue of private jet travel has become topical in recent times following a revelation that government hired a jet to fly in Dome-Kwabenya MP, Sarah Adwoa Safo, to enable her vote on the E-Levy.
Nana Ama Dokua in an interview on Accra-based Joy FM, confirmed that she had indeed given birth days prior but was healthy enough to make the trip back to participate in the vote she descibed as a ‘national assignment.’
The MP who also doubles as Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry further disclosed that she flew to the US aboard a Delta Airlines flight and returned on the same flight days prior to the vote.
“I left my week old child to support a national assignment… In every situation that I am in, once I’m alive, I’m hale and I am hearty; I think if my presence is needed to take such a major decision for the government no matter where I am I should be able to make myself available.”
She continued: “I came by the same commercial flight I went with. I heard rumours about me been flown down in a private jet. I came via Delta Airlines which is a commercial flight, the same commercial flight that I left with that’s what I returned with. I was under no pressure at all. I arrived in fact a few days before the decision and I left a few days after,” she stressed.
The Adwoa Safo saga has become topical after her former partner and colleague MP, Kennedy Agyapong, disclosed that the state hired a private jet to fetch the disgruntled MP who was also in the United States.
Agyapong himself and two other MPs were also in the US and according to him, the four of them were billed to travel back but Adwoa Safo failed to join them on a commercial flight.
When the government needed to have its full set of MPs for the E-Levy vote was when a private jet was sent to fly her in. Her initial appearance in the house is now the subject of an impersonation probe by the Minority in Parliament.
Due to her protracted absence, reports were rife that the Majority were planning to oust her as a lawmaker, she has, however, written formally to the Speaker of Parliament this week asking for a one-month period to return to the House.
Ashantibiz
