Six bullet proof cars In 4 years - Cost: US$1 million

Earlier this week, sections of the print media published the story of how President John Agyekum Kufuor has just taken delivery of two new Presidential Nissan Patrol bullet proof Land Cruisers, flown in from Luxembourg to Accra on emergency orders.

The 'Ghanaian Post' put the cost at 407,712.00 euros and the air freight charges at 78,000 euros, bringing the total cost to about ¢4 trillion and ¢858 million, and the customed vehicles were labelled “dangerous goods as per attached shippers declaration: Notify Office of the President”, obviously to avoid customs inspection.

What the newspapers did not publish, possibly because they were unaware or might have forgotten or did not know, was that only two years ago, precisely in August 2002, a similar two bullet proof, state-of-the-art, custom-made Toyota Land Cruiser armoury Level 7 vehicles and five (5) Toyota Land Cruiser vehicles at a total cost of US$477,380.00 were imported from Denmark for the use of President John Agyekum Kufuor.

The story was published in our issue Vol. 8 No. 88 of Friday, August 23 - Monday, August 26, 2002.

'Ghana Palaver' has learnt that there were already two bulletproof cars in the Presidential car pool at the time the NPP assumed office in January 2001, making it six bulletproof vehicles in less than 4 years for President Kufuor.

Estimated total cost - almost US$1 million.