Ministers and their deputies, as well as Members of Parliament following President Akufo-Addo on his Ashanti regional tour, are in buses.
This is believed to be designed to reduce the long convoys that usually follow the president on these tours.
The convoys have previously been criticised as too long, expensive and needless.
Also, accidents also do happen, the most recent one in May when a deputy Chief of Staff Francis Asenso Boakye escaped after an articulated truck ran into the presidential convoy at dawn.
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In an apparent response to the criticisms, the state-owned Intercity State Transport Corporation (STC) made available two buses for the officials accompanying the president on his tour.
Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation and MP for Old Tafo, Dr Akoto Osei, outgoing Minister for Aviation, Cecelia Abena Dapaah, Environment and Innovation Minister, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, were among the ministers in the buses.
While some social media commentators have lauded the move as saving the public purse, others describe it as throwing dust into the people’s eyes, citing the elephant size government.
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With the President returning to the Ashanti region, ‘world bank’ of the governing New Patriotic Party, there is an expected buzz and fanfare.
The Ashanti region becomes his fourth destination in his nationwide tour which began with the Brong Ahafo region and later Western and Volta regions.
The President has met the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and assured the people of the region, they will never be neglected in the share of development.
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The President is back to the Ashanti region only one month and some odd days after he went there on a 2-day visit in June 2018.
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Before that June 2018, he went on another nationwide tour in August 2017 where he spent three days in the Ashanti region to thank them for his party’s victory in the December 2016 polls.
