Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah-Adjei, the Member of Parliament for Akuapem North, has disclosed she last year left her week-old child in the United States and flew back to Ghana to support voting on the Electronic Transaction E-levy.
Voting for the levy, she said, is a national assignment and stressed once she is alive even after the agony of childbirth and her presence is needed in order for Parliament to make a decision on a major government policy, she had to make herself available.
She disclosed during an interview on Accra-based Joy FM that she had given birth some days prior to flying back to Ghana to participate in the vote on the E-levy because was healthy enough to make the trip back.
Hon. Ama Dokua, who also doubles as the Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, however, vehemently refuted claims she was flown into the country with a private jet.
The issue of private jet travel has become topical in recent times following a revelation that the government hired a jet to fly in Dome-Kwabenya MP, Sarah Adwoa Safo, to enable her vote on the E-Levy.
The MP disclosed that she flew to the US aboard a Delta Airlines flight and returned on the same flight days prior to the vote.
She said, “I came by the same commercial flight I went with. I heard rumours about me being flown down in a private jet. I came via Delta Airlines which is a commercial flight, the same commercial flight that I left with that’s what I returned with.”
“I was under no pressure at all. I arrived, in fact, a few days before the decision and I left a few days after,” she added.
The Adwoa Safo saga has become topical after her former partner and colleague MP, Kennedy Agyapong, disclosed that the state hired a private jet to fetch the disgruntled MP who was also in the United States.
Agyapong himself and two other MPs were also in the US and according to him, the four of them were billed to travel back but Adwoa Safo failed to join them on a commercial flight.
When the government needed to have its full set of MPs for the E-Levy vote, a private jet was then despatched to fly her in. Her initial appearance in the house is now the subject of an impersonation probe by the Minority in Parliament.
Due to her protracted absence, reports were rife that the Majority were planning to oust her as a lawmaker.
She has, however, written formally to the Speaker of Parliament asking for a one-month period to return to the House.