The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has confirmed that it has a hunt for the elusive intermediaries and government officials in the scandalous Airbus bribery saga to get Ghana three military transport aircraft.
This is coming a few days after President Akufo Addo had curiously prompted him to launch an investigating into the scandal spanning the United Kingdom, France and the United States in a US$ 5 million bribery allegation against Ghanaian officials and a US$ 3.6 billion penalty slapped on Airbus for doling out the bribes.
The Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu in an official press statement dated February 10, 2020, said there is enough “reasonable suspicion” of corruption and bribery in the deferred prosecution agreement against Airbus by the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in which Ghana was featured as having its officials and intermediaries having their palms greased with US$ 5 million Airbus bribes.
“The relevant domestic public institutions which can assist the ongoing investigation have been contacted to provide information and documents under Act 959. Contacts have also been initiated with the appropriate foreign authorities as provided by law for information and documents to assist the ongoing investigation,” stated the Special Prosecutor who have been accused of going to sleep on his job.
On January 31, 2020, Ghana was named as one of five countries that Airbus paid or attempted to pay millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for contracts, leading a court in Britain to slap a fine of £3 billion on the company. The countries namely, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Ghana and Taiwan have been reportedly bribed between 2009 and 2015.
This period falls squarely within the previous administration of the now opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The British SFO identified a number of government officials and intermediaries who were directly involved in the scandal. The SFO did not name them but simply tagged them with codes because investigations were still ongoing on the individuals.
For Ghana, the SFO and eventual court ruling in Britain said, a certain Government Official 1 who was an elected official with immense power over military procurement was the possible beneficiary of the Airbus bribe. He reportedly used an intermediary (Intermediary 5) to peddle influence with Airbus.
Incidentally, the said Intermediary 5 is said to be a close brother of Government Official 1.
Already, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) is fingering ex-President Mahama as the Government Official 1 and that Intermediary 5 could be his brother Samuel Mahama who is based in the UK.
However, the NDC has vehemently denied any such link, saying investigations are still ongoing.