The Bureau of Public Safety (BSP) has called for an independent certification and audit into the airworthiness of Ghana’s presidential jet, which has reportedly returned from maintenance.

This comes after the 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.

The Bureau of Public Safety (BPS) in Ghana is a non-profit civil society organization that advocates for public safety, security, health, and environmental protection.

Speaking in an interview with Channel One Newsroom on Sunday, November 16, the Executive Secretary of BSP, Nana Yaw Akwada warned that despite the safety confirmations and certifications by the French aircraft company that conducted the maintenance works on the the Falcon 900EX EASy with registration number 9G-EXE, there is a need for an independent and fully transparent certification before declaring the aircraft safe for presidential use.

“It is good news to hear that the jet is back, but before we can make any concrete statement on its safety or otherwise, it’s very important that we have an independent certification body to let us understand objectively what was established in relation to what the Ghana Armed Forces communicated to us,” he said.

He is demanding that the public be informed about the kind of safety audit that was conducted on the aircraft particularly regarding the scope and quality of the work.This he says will enhance transparency and public trust in the jet’s safety for travels.

“We need to know what kind of safety audit, certification, or maintenance routine the aircraft went through. Then we will be able to appreciate and concretely say it is safe for the President to use,” he noted.

Mr. Akwada cautioned that without independent verification and full disclosure, public trust in the jet’s airworthiness will remain shaky.

“In the absence of that, everything else will be rumour and rhetoric. We need to have full disclosure on the scope of the work done, the certified bodies involved, and the post-repair airworthiness status. Only then can we speak objectively and without any shadow of doubt,” he explained.

He urged authorities and the public to treat any unofficial claims about the aircraft’s condition as hearsay until a transparent, third-party certification process is completed.

Meanwhile, the Presidency and Defence Ministry is yet to confirm the return of the jet following Bright Simons' announcement of his return.

About eleven days ago, Ghana’s 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 had been declared airworthy.

Parts of Bright Simons’ 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 this year, 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.