The Minister of State for Government Communications, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, has revealed that President John Dramani Mahama is using his brother’s private jet for official international travel due to the lack of a reliable state aircraft.

Speaking to the media, on Thursday, March 12, he noted that the practice is a temporary one and will be ceased once a more dependable state aircraft is obtained by the government.

He further explained that the decision to use President Mahama’s brother’s jet is intended to avoid the high costs of renting chartered planes for official trips, ultimately saving the government money.

He added, “The state of Ghana has a deficit in terms of its ability to ferry the president.Before he became president, his brother had an aircraft that he was using. It is a fact well known to everybody. The president says that rather than going to take taxpayers’ money to rent an aircraft, let me continue using that aircraft that I was using pending the arrival of the arrangement the state has made.

"If it were the case that the state had an aircraft that was functioning and the president disregarded that and hopped into his brother’s aircraft and paid for it, in other words, rented it at a cost to the state, then there would be a legitimate basis to raise complaints of conflict of interest and profiteering by his brother. The Air Force itself has said that because of security concerns and the frequent breakdown, they won’t recommend it be used for the president. They have indicated that its operations have proved unreliable and that it costs too much to maintain because the slightest movement requires repairs”.

The explanation follows recent criticism from scores of Ghanaians. Last year, Deputy Minister for Defence, Brogya Genfi, during a briefing on the floor of Parliament on the reasons for the delay in the return of the presidential jet, noted that new technical faults were discovered while the original fault, a corroded fuel tank, was being fixed.

Ghana’s presidential jet has been in France’s Dassault Falcon Service in Le Bourget, France, for its mandatory 24-month and 1,600-flying-hour inspection since March. Eight months on, the Falcon 900EX EASy with registration number 9G-EXE remained grounded, with new faults discovered each time it was scheduled to be dispatched back home.

The Minister, during his presentation, mentioned that the aircraft would only be allowed to return when it was declared airworthy.

However, Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons, in an X (formerly Twitter) post on Sunday, November 16, shared that the jet had arrived in Accra, Ghana. According to him, the Falcon 900EX has been in Ghana since Monday, November 10.

Parts of his post read: “Ghana’s presidential jet has been delivered safely back into the custody of the Ghana Air Force since Monday, the 10th of November. Exactly 8 months after it was sent to the Dassault Falcon Service MRO base at Paris Le Bourget (PLB).”

He reiterated Mr. Brogya’s explanation in Parliament earlier that the faults that were detected required manufacturer-level intervention and prolonged the maintenance schedule, as the repairs could only be executed at that specific Dassault-authorised site.

“Whilst at PLB, it underwent a MANDATORY 24-month and 1600-hour technical inspection. During this extensive inspection, severe defects affecting the fuel tank and a turbofan were discovered, triggering prolonged repairs that could only be done with manufacturer assistance at that specific Dassault facility.”

Following this, “all the complex repairs, final tests (including leak tests, engine ground runs, and acceptance flights) have been successfully completed. The long delay in completing the repairs was due to some apparent difficulty sourcing certain OEM-certified spare parts. The aircraft has, however, been given the all clear by DFS now.”

He continued that, before the jet was allowed to return, “a positioning flight from Marseille, relating to minor logistics, was conducted.”

In July 2025, news about the jet surfaced after Member of Parliament for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, questioned why the Vice President travelled by a rented jet instead of the state’s upon her return from the UK following her medical treatment.

He asked whether the presidential jet was unavailable, restricted, or reassigned at the time of her private return in May.

In response to this, late Defence Minister Dr. Edward Omane Boamah revealed that the jet had been grounded in France for repairs and due to the unavailability of a critical component — the turbofan — which had become severely rusted and required urgent replacement.

He said, “Ghana’s presidential jet, if I am to summarize, is an aircraft that is almost 15 years old that has massive multifocal corrosion, including very important parts of the machine.”

“These defects, we are trying to fix them, but they keep identifying new defects as they fix them. And one serious aspect of the identification is that, when they realised that the turbofan was heavily corroded and it required replacement, the company did not have a readily available spare,” he noted.

He also highlighted the challenges of accessing certain spare parts in the coming months or years, given the rapid advancement of technology and the fact that aircraft manufacturers rarely produce many components for older jets like Ghana’s Falcon.

“Normally, like all technologies over time, when you do not have many of that in circulation, companies do not produce many of such spares. But after a series of negotiations, a spare was received, and that has been installed successfully. And no one can predict, going forward, if other spares also get dysfunctional, whether we are going to be able to have others for replacement,” the Defence Minister added.

The document, which states the detailed status report of the Falcon 900EX, indicates that technicians discovered severe corrosion in the aircraft’s left-hand (LH) and right-hand (RH) feeder tanks, as well as the centre wing tanks. Corrosion and damage were also found on Engine No.

2’s air intake plug receptacle and turbofan, which had to be completely replaced, along with intermittent tripping of the starter-generator on Engine No. 2.

A series of deferred defects had accumulated over previous operations that required manufacturer-level repair. The report also noted that the fuel tank contamination, if left untreated, could potentially cause engine failure during flight, posing a serious safety risk.

All these issues pushed back the initial return of the presidential jet, which was originally scheduled for March 26, 2025; the aircraft’s delivery has since been postponed multiple times.

According to the Defence Minister, the delays the jet has faced at the workshop are a “worrying pattern” and indicate “an ageing presidential jet.”

When the jet was flown for repairs in 2020–2021, it saw no delays. In 2022–2023, it was delayed by 2.5 months. Fast forward to 2024, it saw another 2 months, and in 2025, it has been delayed for four months and counting, with hopes of its return now pinned on July.

Meanwhile, a security analyst, Emmanuel Kotin, did not mince words when he spoke about Ghana’s presidential jet on TV3’s The KeyPoints on Saturday, July 12.

He said, “Six years ago, I described it as a flying coffin. That is what it is. Let’s put politics aside; let’s treat this as a national emergency.”Given Ghana’s status as a sovereign and independent country, Kotin believes, “Nobody would advise the president to use the jet. We need an aircraft befitting our status as a sovereign country.”

While some netizens have advised purchasing a new jet, others have accused the government of wanting to exploit Ghanaians to buy a new jet for their own comfort and selfish gains.

The Defence Minister has highlighted the need to treat the state of the jet as a national and security issue rather than a partisan one, citing that “…this is an air asset of the Air Force that carries not just the President, not just the Executive, but sometimes the Legislature, sometimes other arms of government, and sometimes other institutions.”