The presidential candidate of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Dramani Mahama has expressed disappointment in Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu for identifying him as the ‘Government official 1’ in the Airbus scandal.
Mr Amidu in his corruption risk assessment report of the controversial Agyapa Royalty deal apart from naming Mr Mahama as ‘Government official 1’ in the Airbus scandal also said he is not interrogating Mr Mahama in connection with the Airbus scandal because he is the presidential candidate of the biggest opposition party in the country in the upcoming elections.
Reacting to Mr Amidu, Mr Mahama said: I’m disappointed in Martin Amidu for putting that paragraph in his report to equalise things. No financial benefit accrued to me. Not a single dollar…We are talking about deferred prosecution agreement in which nobody’s names were mentioned and yet there’s been inference that it must be this person, it must be that person and so legally, he doesn’t even have any basis to proceed, on what basis, on what document is he proceeding?
Mr Mahama further rubbished assertions that Mr Amidu had probed the Airbus scandal to have identified him as ‘Government official 1’.
“What investigations has he done? Who has he spoken to? What investigation has he conducted? He should come out and tell us…” Mr Mahama said in an interview on Accra-based Starr FM on Tuesday, 3 November 2020.
Mr Mahama insist he did not benefit from the Airbus deal in any way.
Airbus saga
A judgment from the Crown Court at Southwark, UK, indicted Ghana alleging that contrary to section 7 of the UK’s Bribery Act 2010, Airbus failed to prevent its close associates or persons associated with them from “bribing others concerned with the purchase of military transport aircraft by the Government of Ghana, where the said bribery was intended to obtain or retain advantages in the conduct of business.”
The document stated that the bribery allegation took place between 2009 and 2015 where the European aviation giant engaged the services of a close relative of a high-ranking elected Ghanaian government official who served as an intermediary to facilitate the sale of three military transport aircraft to the government of Ghana.
“A number of Airbus employees knew that the intermediary was a close relative of Government Official 1, who was a key decision-maker in respect of the proposed sales.
“A number of Airbus employees made or promised success-based commission payments of approximately €5 million to Intermediary 5”, the document continued.
Also, the document pointed out that “false documentation was created by or with the agreement of Airbus employees in order to support and disguise these payments. The payments were intended to induce or reward “improper favour” by Government Official 1 toward Airbus.
Payments were eventually stopped due to the arrangement failing the due diligence processes required by the Liquidation Committee.
Source : Classfmonline.com
