Presidential Staffer at Government Communications, Bridget Otoo, has taken a swipe at Member of Parliament for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, over the MP’s recent post on President Mahama’s foreign trip to Japan.
According to the former broadcaster, the MP’s claim that the President blew more than $650,000 of taxpayers’ money to charter a private jet for his travel to Japan, Germany, and Singapore was a deliberate lie concocted by the lawmaker.
“… with the NPP, they’re a different kind of opposition. I mean, MPs are lying. Just this past Sunday, you had a Member of Parliament write that the President flew private jets. Went ahead to calculate how much the President spent on private jets, where he flew to, how it was. Now you’re talking about this deliberate lie. Absolutely deliberate lie,” Bridget said when she appeared on KSM’s Unfiltered YouTube show.
When KSM asked, “Is it something that he sat down and fabricated, or he actually thought somebody misinformed him and he decided to?”
Bridget responded, saying, “So I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. So assuming somebody even gave him false information, when you are found out, what do you do? You retract, you apologise and move on. Now he’s standing on the lie. He’s a king who is naked in the public square. Everybody can see that you’re lying.
And you’re saying, oh no, that’s not what I meant. I am just asking the question that, okay, if the President is going, he should have gone this way. If he did 10 hours, it should have been $105,000.”
Bridget Otoo went on to slam Rev. Ntim Fordjour, another NPP MP for Assin South, who also alleged in the early days of the Mahama government that an air ambulance was trafficking drugs from Gran Canaria into the country.
“I say they should leave that to the foot soldiers. I can understand if the foot soldiers are doing that, but not a Member of Parliament. I mean, one, two, a whole Reverend took us on a wild goose chase with some fake cocaine scandal.”
Bridget commended Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa for what she described as “a fantastic job” when the NDC was in opposition.
“It tells you that Mr. Ablakwa did a fantastic job when we were in opposition. Because when he put his documents out, he wasn’t just talking. He backed it with evidence, documents, he scanned, made it public, was on platforms to defend it, made impact, would petition STRIDe where he needed to, petition whichever institution is involved, right? But these people are low-budget Ablakwa.
They can literally string their documents together. So they try, go on Facebook. Are you advising them to learn to lie and lie properly? No, not lie, Ablakwa did not lie, no. No, I’m just joking on that, yeah. I want them to hold the government accountable, but do so with sincerity, do so diligently. But don’t just—what they are doing is child’s play.” She added.