[ 2014-04-23 ]

US flagged plane: Gov’t is complicating matters – GII
The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has indicated
that government is complicating issues by
suppressing facts and information regarding the US
flagged plane which was spotted at Tehran’s
airport in Iran.
“When you try to suppress information or if you
deny information without giving us the actual
convincing facts, you tend to complicate the
matter,” the Executive Director of the GII,
Vitus Azeem stated.
A report by the New York Times over the weekend
stated that a US flagged plane owned by a small
community bank in Utah was mysteriously parked at
Tehran’s airport in Iran adding that the said
plane had been leased by a Ghanaian mining
company, Engineers and Planners owned by President
John Mahama’s brother.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry is also reported to have
claimed that the plane had been used to transport
top Ghanaian officials as part of a broader push
to expand cooperation between the two countries.
The report has sparked criticisms as critics
believe Ghana has breached international aviation
rules as the plane is said to have landed without
approval.
Government has vehemently denied any ties with the
US plane and has described the New York Times’
report as speculative adding that the President
has never used the plane in question.


Speaking on Eyewitness News on Tuesday, Mr. Azeem
maintained that Ghanaians have the right be
worried and suspicious because government is not
telling the whole truth to Ghanaians.
He urged government to mention the name of the
public official who was reportedly on the plane
because if that it not done, “you will not be
able to clean people’s minds of that
perception.”
Mr. Azeem insisted it was imperative to establish
whether the said official was on a private trip or
on an official trip. “If it was leased for one
public official to go with a business delegation,
that raises the questions otherwise, we need to
know if that public official was alone…”
He suggested that steps should be taken to get the
name of the said public official from the
government of Iran because “if they came out
with the initial information, they should have a
list of the people that came and why they came to
that country but we probably do not have that
capacity to get that information.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of Information and Media
Relations, Mahama Ayariga has revealed the said
public official “went there in his private
capacity and so when people go on their private
capacities, it’s a matter for them.”

Source - Citifmonline

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