Kufuor makes 3 foreign trips per month

For many of the African Heads of State who were in Accra for the African Union (AU) Summit, this was their first ever visit to Ghana. For Ghana’s President Kufuor, however, he has travelled peripatetically to virtually every capital of his guests’ countries.

This year alone as at the end of June, President Kufuor had travelled abroad 19 times, an average of 3 foreign trips per month.

As at the end of his six years in office in December 2006, President Kufuor had travelled abroad 120 times. Add that to the 19 foreign trips this year, and the President has travelled abroad 139 times in 6½ years or 78 months. This works out, to 139 ÷ 78 = 1.78 or approximately two foreign trips per month or one foreign trip every 2 weeks.

This is a “peripatetic” traveller per excellence, where “peripatetic” is defined in the Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (International Students Edition 2002) as “involving travelling to different places and staying for a short time at each place”.

In our issue Vol. 13 No. 29 of Friday, January 26-Monday, January 29, 2007, in our Front Page Column and under the same headline as today’s, this is what we wrote:

“As President Kufuor begins his 7th year in office, we deem it our public duty to remind Ghanaians that as at the end of 2006, the President had travelled out of the country 120 times! It works out to about 21 foreign trips per year or on the average one foreign trip every two weeks. Not even travelling salesmen can equal this record.

The President never used any of the two Presidential Jets – the G3 Gulfstream which he has sold under dubious circumstances, and the F28 Fokker – that were available to him, on any of his foreign trips. He never used Ghana Airways which he came to meet as a bustling airline and which he collapsed. Instead, he travelled by commercial flight, First Class.

The average number of his entourage was 40. The average cost per trip was US$100, 000. We are no mathematicians, but we are sure the mathematicians can work out the total cost of the President’s trips to the Ghanaian taxpayer.

For the benefit of our readers and as a public duty, we publish below the details of President Kufuor’s foreign trips in 2007. The year-by-year details of the President’s foreign trips up to the end of 2006 were published in the issue of our paper under reference.