Mahama breaks record of presidential travels - Napo

Member of Parliament for Manhyia, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has criticized what he described as wasteful foreign travels by President John Mahama.

In his view, in spite of the huge per diems and entourage, the frequent trips abroad by the president have not yielded any positive results for Ghana.

“President Mahama has broken the record of presidential travels abroad in the history of Ghana. In the last three months, he is virtually out of the country every week yet Ghanaians are languishing in abject poverty,” he added.

Dr. Opoku Prepmeh popularly called 'Napo', made the comment on Asempa FM's Ekosii Sen programme Tuesday.

President Mahama last week left the country for the United Kingdom and took time off to embark on a two-day official visit to Denmark.

After that visit he traveled to Oslo, Norway on Monday, October 27 to address a wide group of businessmen and investors.

Prior to this, he has made several travels and visited countries like US, Turkey, China, Dubai, Japan and most o the African countries as president.

But Dr. Opoku Prempeh said there are more pressing domestic issues to deal with than always junketing abroad under the guise of wooing investors.

According to him, vice President, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur or the Foreign Affairs Minister, Hannah Tetteh can represent him on such trips while he [Mahama] turns his attention to the numerous domestic issues like the public sector strikes.

“Though he predecessor former President John Kufuor was criticized for frequent foreign trips, it yielded positive results,” he noted.

Napo called on President Mahama to cut down on the travels and work on the snail pace to which his government is working to bring some respite to Ghanaians.

“People like the Chief of Staff, Prosper Bani are taking advantage of President Mahama's absence to arrogate powers unto themselves,” he claimed.