The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has officially responded to the trending Airbus scandal in which media reports have alleged that officials in the erstwhile Mahama and Mills governments received bribes.
At a press conference today, National Communication Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi, said the approved judgment of the Crown Court of Southwark in England bothered solely on Airbus’ breach of UK laws and had nothing to do with anything that any past government official had done.
“A careful reading of the approved judgments of the Crown Court of Southwark and the District Court of Columbia on the matter shows that the entire case is about legal infractions by employees and agents of Airbus and nothing more,” Sammy Gyamfi said.
He enumerated that per the contents of the actual judgment, “Airbus on their own accord, engaged intermediaries or better still hired agents to help them sell military aircraft to Ghana between the years 2009 and 2015.
“While the use of agents or business partners is common practice with multinational companies, the approved judgments held that Airbus failed to follow OECD rules in appointing their business intermediaries.
“The approved judgments further found, that payment by Airbus of success-based commission to their intermediaries was in excess of the agreed 5% commission as captured in the transaction Agreement.
“Whereas, there have been claims that success-based commissions were paid to agents of Airbus with the intent to induce or reward improper favour by the said “government official 1”, it is instructive to note, that there is no indication either in the approved judgments of the Crown Court of Southwark or the District Court of Columbia that any such inducement took place.”
Sammy Gyamfi pointed out that the judgment did not name or indict any official of the Mills Mahama government as a taker of bribes from Airbus, and that this is so because no bribery took place as has been widely alleged by the media.
According to the media, Airbus allegedly paid bribes to the tune of 5million euros to some government officials in the Mills/Mahama Administration between 2011 and 2016 to gain undue advantage over competitors in respect of contracts to supply aircraft to Ghana’s Military.
The reports have also eagerly linked a 3billion pound fine slapped on Airbus over the scandal, to the alleged payment of bribes in Ghana, even as President Akufo-Addo has ordered a probe into the scandal.
But as Sammy Gyamfi points out, in respect of Ghana the court’s judgment never said any official had been bribed and that even the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) which had filed the court suit did not allege bribery against any Ghanaian official even though in the case of other countries like Malaysia, the SFO specifically stated that bribery had occurred.
Sammy Gyamfi also pointed out that there is no evidence whatsoever that Ghana lost money through bribery in the Airbus transaction; nor is there any evidence that Airbus’ transaction with Ghana broke any laws.