Spokesperson of Former President John Dramani Mahama Joyce Bawah Mogtari has said that it cannot be the case that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) were just looking for who Government Official One was in the Airbus bribery scandal for which they petitioned the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to look into the matter.
She says that they sought to denigrate Mr Mahama with the request to the OSP to probe the matter.
Her comments come after a Deputy Communications director of the NPP, Dennis Miracles Aboagye said that the report by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has finally unraveled who the Government Official One is in the Abirbus Scandal.
He said it took a while to know that Forner President John Dramani Mahama is the one referred to as Government Official.
“Finally, the country gets to know who Government Official 1 is…. It took a while but now we know. It brought global shame but we shall surely get out of it. Never again, should we put our country in the hands of a leader who brings such global shame,” he wrote on Facebook on Thursday, August 8.
But speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on Thursday, August 8, Bawah Mogtari said “Is that what they went to court to seek? Is that the instruction that President Akufo-Addo gave to the special prosecutor? Is that what he was asking for? Was he looking for identity when the court had clearly indicated a good reason why they were not making the names known? Certainly not.
“They were going there to seek to denigrate and create a wrong impression, it is the reason this matter had traveled all the way to this day. There can be no other reason why they were pursuing this matter, a matter that has actually come to a logical conclusion.”
The OSP after its investigations in the Airbus scandal case has disclosed that John Mahama is ‘Government Official One’ in the Airbus SE case.
The OSP at a press briefing on Thursday, August 8 said Mahama was identified as Government Official One by the UK and US courts during their investigations.
John Dramani Mahama, a former President and now flag bearer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was Vice President at the time the incident happened.
A breakdown of the Airbus bribery scandal
Funding for the purchase of aircraft
The House also approved a total loan sum of $105,370,177.09 from the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) for the purchase of an Embraer E190 jet for the country. The Embraer agreement was to cover related spare parts, relevant accessories as well as the construction of an aircraft hangar big enough to house three large aircraft.
One of the C295s acquired under the deal supported United Nations-led missions in Mali. The rest were bought, as the Government explained at the time, to support strategic operations of the Ghana Air Force including surveillance of the country’s offshore oil production fields, border patrol, the training of pilots and internal transportation of troops.
At the time, Ghanaian troops were said to have relied heavily on civilian flights for their movements and needed military aircraft to correct this anomaly. Despite opposition criticisms, the government went ahead with the purchase agreements.
English law allows the SFO to postpone prosecution of an organisation based on an agreement between the SFO and a company or companies suspected to have committed economic crimes.
Such an agreement – (DPA) – requires a seal of Judicial approval to become lawful and may even allow the offending institution to avoid prosecution entirely.
In the present case, the court found that the DPA is in the public interest and that the terms agreed to meet the tests of fairness, reasonability and proportionality.
Independent estimates suggest Airbus could easily haemorrhage some £200 billion in the long term if it faced prosecution immediately.
In the case of Ghana, the Judgement of the Crown Court highlights instances where Airbus officials, as part of a scheme to obtain and or maintain contracts with the government, either bribed or agreed to bribe intermediaries with close links to a high-ranking state official said to have influence over the country’s aircraft purchase plans between 2011 and 2015.
The court documents did not mention any names but the timeframe stated in the judgement covered some periods of the Mills-Mahama era.
Subsequent approaches by Airbus succeeded, resulting in Ghana buying 3 C259 aircrafts through the multinational’s Spanish defence subsidiaries at separate times.
However, after an internal investigation exposed the link between intermediary 5 and the unnamed high ranking government of Ghana official, a scheme was then hatched by the parties to route the transaction through a third party company of Spanish origin, which company had no previous dealings with Ghana.
The payments were disguised as commission on the contract amount. The Spanish third party company pulled out of a subsequent deal that handed Ghana her third C259 aircraft. This was after Airbus had engaged an external counsel to conduct due diligence on it. Intermediary 5’s subsequent claim that Airbus owed him some €1.6 million under the deal covering the third C295 was not honoured.
The DPA does not mean the Airbus and its officials are immune from prosecution for the alleged crimes.
Under English law, the SFO is entitled to, in due course, prosecute Airbus if it is satisfied that the company failed to comply with the terms of the DPA approved by the Court.
Such a move is likely to include the intermediaries in Ghana and related individuals. In such a case, the SFO may rely on Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) provisions under English law to mount the relevant charges.
Source: 3news.com
