Airbus Scandal: Mahama is not Government Official 1 – Ablakwa

Legislator for North Tongu Constituency has said his former boss, former President John Dramani Mahama is not Government Official 1 mentioned in the Airbus scandal.

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said the reference cannot be attributed to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer because he “has always conducted himself above board.”

“I would rather that we all engage with the relevant authorities and give all the necessary support to the relevant authorities to investigate this matter,” the MP said.

His comment follows the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) alleging on Monday that Mr Mahama is the “Government Official 1” mentioned in a bribery allegation involving European aviation giant, Airbus.

The European aircraft manufacturing company, last week entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, with the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which was investigating it for bribing or failing to prevent corruption in transactions in 20 countries, including Ghana.

This has sparked a flurry of political activity with the opposition NDC issuing a statement denying that its officials in the erstwhile Mills and Mahama administrations were involved in any corruption with Airbus, which supplied military aircraft to Ghana in 2012. 

The deferred prosecution agreement didn’t specifically name any officials who might have been bribed or corrupted during Ghana’s negotiations with Airbus but it refers to personalities involved as Government Official 1 (a high-ranking elected public figure) and Intermediary 5 (a British national and close relative of Government Official 1), among others of which the ruling party has accused the former President of being Government official 1. 

The North Tongu MP said it is time for a thorough investigation and wrong for the NPP to be pointing fingers and accusing people just to score cheap political points.   

“Let us not get dirty, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let us allow investigations to continue,” he said.

He urged that the Special Prosecutor should be given the necessary support he needs to speed up investigations.

“This is somebody who even while in government proved he could be independent as expected of the Attorney General,” he said.

On his part, Sulemana Braima, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), said the selection of Mr Amidu is questionable. 

He said since the Special Prosecutor served in the Mills/Mahama administration in various capacities he will be caught in a conflict of interest situation.

But Mr Ablakwa insisted that the NDC did nothing wrong in the deal and the Special Prosecutor should be given the benefit of the to conduct his investigations.

He further called for thorough investigations to be conducted on the matter insisting “we should not be selective with investigations.”

Source: Myjoyonline.com