He said that because of the current economic challenge, the president has for the last three months not travelled using a private jet.
He added that although it is sometimes important that he use the private jet, it is part of efforts to help reduce the government’s expenditure, citinewroom.com reports.
Nitiwul reiterated that the president recently used a private jet in Belgium only because he had no option.
“Sometimes when the President is going for a particular program, the difficulty arises when he is supposed to arrive at a particular time and is delayed by using public transport.
“However, the President has not used a private jet in the last three months. He uses a commercial jet. I know that as a fact. We all recognise the situation we find ourselves in, and everybody must bring down his expectations. The only exception was when he was in Brussels, he used Air France, but he was having difficulties getting an aircraft to continue his journey,” he said.
The defence minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Bimbilla, said that the appointees of the president are also contributing their quota to ease the financial burden on the government by taking a salary deduction.
“The Ministers will not live the same way they do. Ministers’ salaries have been slashed by 30 percent…The government is slashing expenditure,” he added.
The government has come under a lot of scrutinies for the current hardships in the country which has forced it to seek an International Monetary Fund bailout.
Many have accused the government of mismanaging Ghana’s economy by living to behold the means of the country.
In a statement signed by the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the finance minister was instructed by the president to seek the IMF’s support for an economic programme put together by the government of Ghana.
Representatives of the International Monetary Fund arrived in Ghana on Wednesday, July 6, 2022, for negotiations with the government of Ghana.
