Political shadow-boxing has ensued between the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Government headed by President Akufo-Addo after the presidency issued a direct order to Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, to investigate the Airbus scandal.
Just as Martin Amidu was receiving his marching orders yesterday, former Attorney General, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, released a statement in which she said media reports that Airbus had supposedly paid some 5million euros worth of bribes to Ghanaian officials under Mahama were misleading.
“the reports alleging that Airbus SE paid bribes during the administration of President John Evans Atta Mills and John Dramani are false, misleading and do not reflect the Approved Judgment,” Mrs. Appiah Oppong had written
She had also indicated that she will soon come out with a correct version of the facts.
The former Attorney General’s position has since been supported by the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, who stated this morning on TV that President Akufo-Addo’s order to the Special Prosecutor is a desperate move to divert attention from trending national issues that do not favour the government.
He lists these issues to include the disappeared excavators seized from illegal miners and the resistance against the Electoral Commission’s move to compile a new voters’ register.
“You know, if your cow gets lost, you may be so desperate that in looking for that cow, you may be looking into a hen coop to see whether the cow is hiding inside the hen-coop,” Mr. Asiedu Nketia said.
However, Deputy Minister of Information, Pius Enam Hadzide, has said that government will take the Airbus bribery scandal seriously and that the NPP Administration is eagerly looking forward to unravelling the identity of the officials who Airbus allegedly bribed.
“…especially government official 1, who, documents indicate, was the fulcrum around which these create, loot and share scheme evolved.”
Airbus had made moves to sell three military transport aircrafts C295 to Ghana between 2011 and 2015, and decided to use middlemen, referred in court documents as “intermediaries.” Under the UK’s laws, no commercial company is allowed to use an intermediary who is connected to any government official in the country that it is transacting with.
Airbus had however not taken care to ensure that its main intermediary in the transaction with the government of Ghana was not a relative of any government official.
A Liquidation Committee which was later set up to probe Airbus’ dealings with Ghana found out that Airbus’ intermediary through whom it was dealing with Ghana, (named as intermediary 5) was related to a high ranking official in the Mills/Mahama government.
This same intermediary was found out to be a UK citizen with no experience whatsoever in the aerospace business. On realizing this, Airbus quickly tried to circumvent the process by naming a different person, rather than intermediary 5 as the one that it was dealing with. Court documents names this person as intermediary 8.