{"id":768737,"date":"2019-12-20T11:40:13","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T11:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2019\/12\/20\/mps-clash-over-presidential-trips\/"},"modified":"2019-12-20T11:40:13","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T11:40:13","slug":"mps-clash-over-presidential-trips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/12\/20\/mps-clash-over-presidential-trips\/","title":{"rendered":"MPs Clash Over Presidential Trips"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong> Ato Forson and Patrick Yaw Boamah <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Parliament<br \/>\nhas approved an amount of GH\u00a24.3 billion for the Office of Government Machinery,<br \/>\nwith the Minority members raising serious concerns over the degree of external<br \/>\nand internal trips with their consequent huge costs and health implications to<br \/>\nthe nation.<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\nMinority, led by the ranking member of the Finance Committee of Parliament and<br \/>\nNational Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for<br \/>\nAjumako\/Enyan\/Essiam, Ato Forson, said 150 foreign and local trips had been<br \/>\nprogrammed for President Akufo-Addo to undertake in 2020 which would come with<br \/>\na huge cost to the state.<\/p>\n<p>He<br \/>\nsaid the President\u2019s foreign trips from January 2019 to September 2019 had cost<br \/>\nthe nation a whopping GH\u00a262.5 million, with hotel accommodation also costing<br \/>\nthe taxpayer GH\u00a25.8 million.<\/p>\n<p>He<br \/>\nsaid in the case of 2019, the President was scheduled to undertake 50 foreign<br \/>\nand domestic trips, with their accompanying costs to the nation but in 2020,<br \/>\nthe President has been programmed to undertake 150 foreign and local trips<br \/>\nwhich will come with a great cost to the nation.<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\ndeputy ranking member of the Finance Committee and NDC MP for Sekyere Afram<br \/>\nPlains, Alex Adomako-Mensah, said the President is 75 years old now and his<br \/>\nhealth should be of paramount concern to the nation and, therefore, he should<br \/>\nnot be burdened with such number of trips which could affect his health for the<br \/>\nnation to bear the cost.<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\nNew Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Okaikwei Central and the Deputy<br \/>\nMinister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Patrick Yaw Boamah, in a sharp<br \/>\nrebuttal, questioned the motive behind the Minority\u2019s argument, stressing that<br \/>\nthe Minority members were only jealous of the President\u2019s activeness and his<br \/>\npassion to deliver on his mandate to the good people of the country.<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\ndeputy minister also said that all those foreign trips are not for sight-seeing<br \/>\nbut trips that are undertaken to attract investments into the country and also<br \/>\nto build and strengthen diplomatic relations with other nations.<\/p>\n<p>Out<br \/>\nof the budgeted amount for the Office of the Government Machinery, the<br \/>\nScholarship Secretariat had the lion\u2019s share of GH\u00a22.6 billion to help support<br \/>\n443 students from public universities and the Ghana Institute of Languages, as<br \/>\nwell as 153 students from training colleges to participate in the Year Abroad<br \/>\nProgramme which is for language efficiencies.<\/p>\n<p>According<br \/>\nto the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah, the secretariat<br \/>\nwas able to pay all the arrears of 2017\/2018 academic year for 121,359 second<br \/>\ncycle students at a total cost of GH\u00a228.3 million.<\/p>\n<p>He<br \/>\nsaid the secretariat also settled claims for feeding grants for 76,230 students<br \/>\non Northern and Hardship awards at a cost of GH\u00a270 million while the stipends,<br \/>\nair tickets and other allowances of 221 Ghanaian medical students who returned<br \/>\nfrom Cuba after they completed their training at a cost of GH\u00a241.1 million.<\/p>\n<p>Other agencies under the Office of the Government Machinery include the Micro Finance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Ghana Investment Promotion Centre,\u00a0 National Identification Authority (NIA), State Interests and Governance Authority, Nations Builders Corps, Council of State, State Protocol, Office of the Administrator-General and many others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>By Thomas Fosu Jnr <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ato Forson and Patrick Yaw Boamah Parliament has approved an amount of GH\u00a24.3 billion for the Office of Government Machinery, with the Minority members raising serious concerns over the degree of external and internal trips with their consequent huge costs and health implications to the nation. The Minority, led by the ranking member of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":768738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>MPs Clash Over Presidential Trips - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/12\/20\/mps-clash-over-presidential-trips\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"MPs Clash Over Presidential Trips - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Ato Forson and Patrick Yaw Boamah Parliament has approved an amount of GH\u00a24.3 billion for the Office of Government Machinery, with the Minority members raising serious concerns over the degree of external and internal trips with their consequent huge costs and health implications to the nation. 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