Damango MP and Ranking Member of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has rejected claims that Bosome-Freho MP Nana Asafo-Adjei Ayeh is pursuing a personal vendetta against Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, insisting that the Minority’s concerns over Ghana’s South Africa evacuation expenditure are rooted in parliamentary oversight.
Mr. Jinapor described the allegations as “wholly false and, quite frankly, ridiculous”, arguing that the demand for accountability was a collective position of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Minority Caucus and not a personal dispute between the MPs and the Minister.
His comments follow a growing disagreement between the Majority and Minority caucuses over the GH¢49.72 million spent on evacuating 1,964 Ghanaians from South Africa following xenophobic attacks.
The controversy escalated after the Majority Caucus accused Mr. Asafo-Adjei Ayeh of targeting Mr. Ablakwa because of an alleged attempt to secure an exception for NPP Second Vice-Chairman Henry Nana Boakye, popularly known as Nana B, to retain his service passport.
The Majority alleged that Mr. Asafo-Adjei Ayeh and Mr Boakye had approached the Minister over the passport issue, which it said was connected to a directive requiring former officeholders to surrender their diplomatic and service passports.
However, Mr. Jinapor dismissed the suggestion that the Minority’s scrutiny of the evacuation expenditure was motivated by the passport controversy.
“It has been alleged that his scrutiny is driven by a personal vendetta against the Honourable Minister for Foreign Affairs over a supposed passport failure. That claim is wholly false and, quite frankly, ridiculous,” he said on Tuesday, October 13, 2026.
The dispute over the evacuation expenditure dates back to September 7, when Mr. Ablakwa announced that the government had spent GH¢49,721,786 to bring 1,964 Ghanaians home between May 27 and September 4, 2026.
According to the Minister, GH¢38.84 million covered chartered flights, commercial tickets, ground transportation, feeding, accommodation and medical expenses, while GH¢10.8 million went towards reintegration grants and transport allowances. A further GH¢84,274 was used to repatriate the remains of two Ghanaians.
The government funded GH¢33.72 million of the total expenditure, while Engineers and Planners, a company owned by businessman Ibrahim Mahama, contributed GH¢16 million.
Seeking further details, Mr. Asafo-Adjei Ayeh submitted a Right to Information (RTI) request for itemized expenditure, payment registers, flight manifests and procurement records. The Ministry subsequently provided a report running to more than 200 pages.
On Sunday, October 11, the Minority held a press conference, arguing that its examination of the documents had revealed discrepancies requiring further explanation and an independent audit.
The Minority questioned whether the records adequately accounted for all 1,964 evacuees and the payments reportedly made to them.
Mr. Jinapor said the allegations of a personal vendetta were an attempt to shift attention away from those concerns.
“These attacks are a grand diversionary tactic employed by the majority to distract from the alarming discrepancies identified by the minority,” he stated.
According to Mr. Jinapor, the Minority’s review of the payment registers found that only 824 names could be matched across the records for the GH¢5,000 reintegration grant and the GH¢500 transport allowance.
The figure contrasts with the Ministry’s reported position that all 1,964 evacuees received both payments.
“The records must be reconciled with that claim,” he said.
The Minority also questioned the flight records, saying documents reviewed accounted for 926 passengers on chartered flights and 247 passengers in the commercial flight records supplied.
The combined figure of 1,173 leaves a difference of 791 against the reported total of 1,964 evacuees, according to the Minority’s analysis.
“That leaves a whopping gap of 791 against the announced total,” Mr. Jinapor said.
He further cited differences between the registers for reintegration grants and transport allowances, stating that the former contained 1,508 signatories while the latter had 1,001.
Mr. Jinapor also raised concerns about duplicate entries and payments involving 442 children, arguing that the Ministry needed to clarify how the records and allowances relating to minors had been handled.
The Minority has estimated that GH¢16.42 million in expenditure requires further reconciliation, although the concerns remain allegations arising from its review of the documents and do not, on their own, establish that funds were misappropriated.
The Majority Caucus has rejected the Minority’s claims, maintaining that the evacuation expenditure is supported by documentation.
At a press conference on October 12, the Chairman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Dr Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, said the committee had received and scrutinised a comprehensive report from the Ministry.
He said the report included an exhaustive roll of all 1,964 evacuees, with details such as names, dates of birth, passport numbers, contact information, amounts received and signatures. He added that the Ministry had supplied financial documents covering flights, transport, feeding, accommodation and other logistical expenses.
The Majority also defended the government’s handling of the evacuation, praising President John Dramani Mahama and Mr. Ablakwa for their response to the xenophobic attacks.
The competing accounts have left the two caucuses at odds over whether the documentation provided adequately reconciles the reported expenditure with the number of people evacuated and the payments made.
Mr. Jinapor maintained that the Majority should focus on addressing the questions raised by the Minority rather than challenging the motives of the MP who brought them to public attention.
“Our colleagues on the majority side should share our duty to scrutinise public expenditure. They should be concerned about the discrepancies themselves, not the Honourable Member who brought them to light on behalf of the minority,” he said.
He renewed the Minority’s demand for a full and independent audit of the evacuation expenditure by a reputable audit and accounting firm.
According to him, an independent review would help establish whether the reported figures correspond with the supporting records and whether public funds were properly accounted for.
“The majority’s assertion that the Ministry submitted an extensive report does not resolve any of these discrepancies,” he said.
“We acknowledge the Ministry’s response and indeed, our concerns arose from examining the very documents it supplied.”
Mr. Jinapor stressed that the Minority was not accusing Mr. Ablakwa of wrongdoing at this stage but was seeking answers to questions arising from its examination of the records.
“Let me emphasize that the minority is not accusing the Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs of wrongdoing at this stage. We have identified discrepancies that require explanation and an independent audit will help establish the facts,” he stated.
He added that the Minister should support an independent audit if he was confident that the expenditure had been properly accounted for.
Mr. Jinapor also emphasised that the Minority supported the evacuation of Ghanaians from South Africa, arguing that the protection of citizens and accountability for public funds were complementary responsibilities.
“The minority’s position has always been that protecting lives and accounting for public funds are not competing duties. They are complementary,” he said.
He insisted that the need to evacuate Ghanaians safely did not exempt the government from explaining how taxpayers’ money was spent.
“Asking a Minister to account for taxpayers’ funds is not a personal attack. It is a duty entrusted to us as Members of Parliament and no amount of personal abuse will make us abandon it,” he added.
Mr. Jinapor concluded that the Minority would continue to pursue the matter through Parliament’s oversight processes.
“Ghanaians deserve a full and credible account of this expenditure and we will keep insisting on that. Let us have the audit,” he said.
