Military denied content of post surrounding misuse of presidential jet

Mensah Thompson apologizes and retracts initial allegation

Mensah Thompson, Executive Director of the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability, ASEPA, has confirmed receiving an invitation from the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service.

According to him, the invitation is in respect of a Facebook post he authored late last year concerning an alleged misuse of the presidential jet by children of the President’s relative. He has since retracted the allegations.

Last Thursday, “I received a call from the Police on Friday inviting me to answer questions on my publications on the Presidential jet,” he announced in a Facebook post on Sunday, January 23, 2022.

The post also confirmed that he will be honouring the invitation on Monday, January 24 in the company of his lawyers.

“Well tomorrow at 10AM, in the company of my lawyers, I shall be honoring the invitation of the CID at the CID Headquarters to answer any questions they may have concerning the publication I made in my capacity as the head of a Civil Society Organization with key responsibility to check government and it’s agencies!!!” it added.

On 7th January, Thompson posted an allegation on his Facebook wall, the first two paragraphs of which read: “So between the 20th and 30th of December, 2021..during the Christmas, the children of a close relative of the President took Ghana’s Presidential Jet the Falcon EX jet on a trip to the UK just for Christmas shopping.

“They didn’t go alone, they went with their friends and partied in the sky all through the trip, taking snap videos and flaunting their lucky adventure.”

The Ghana Armed Forces subsequently issued a statement, dated January 9, 2022, dismissing the entire post describing it as a figment of the imagination of the author. It also explained that the jet had in a long time not made a trip to Europe and that available records will prove that.

That letter’s last paragraph said the military had reported the issue to the Inspector-General of Police for further investigation given the gravity of the allegations.

Thompson on his part withdrew the contents of his post stating that he had sought some information on the said trip from the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, GCAA. It is unknown to GhanaWeb whether he has received a response from GCAA as yet.

Mensah Thompson’s post on Police invitation

After my interview on PowerFM on Thursday, I received a call from the Police on Friday inviting me to answer questions on my publications on the Presidential jet.

Prior to that the Police had called PowerFM asking for the location to our office, when the complaint they received had details of my contact which they could have reached out.

Well tomorrow at 10AM, in the company of my lawyers, I shall be honoring the invitation of the CID at the CID Headquarters to answer any questions they may have concerning the publication I made in my capacity as the head of a Civil Society Organization with key responsibility to check government and it’s agencies!!!