The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) says former President, John Dramani Mahama, cannot be entrusted with Ghana’s fight against corruption after selling his integrity and the country for 5million Euros in the Airbus Scandal.
Former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, fingered the presidential candidate of the NDC, as the mysterious ‘government official one’ in the scandal.
The government of Ghana commenced efforts to get Ghana’s share of the airbus compensation repatriated to Ghana.
International courts fined Airbus, the International airplane manufacturer, about $3.9 billion in compensation for admitting it paid bribes to various international actors as part of its operations.
Records available to the Government of Ghana suggest about $30m of the fine is a result of bribes paid to then government officials in Ghana.
Addressing a news conference in Accra on Friday, December 4, 2020, in reaction to the latest development, Deputy Campaign Manager of the NPP, Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said Mahama had not been able to travel to Europe or the United States since the issue broke out at the end of February 2020.
“Indeed, our information is that his own brother Ibrahim Mahama was even made a victim of the Airbus scandal, when he traveled to the United States in January 2019, he was denied entry and returned to London because of the investigation that was going on involving his two other brothers, John and Samuel,” he said.
Since March 2020, Ghanaians have been wondering when Mahama will be interrogated over the 5 million Euros bribery allegation.
The former special prosecutor explained that he couldn’t prosecute Mahama because he secured himself an escape “as the presidential candidate of the NDC.”
The Airbus corruption scandal should be of great concern to all Ghanaians, Abdul-Hamid stated. According to him, “The fact that an international company was able to penetrate to the highest office of the land, and further go on to pay bribes, is an indictment on those who sold their integrity and used their public office for private gain. It is a scar on the conscience of those who were entrusted to seek the common good of all Ghanaians but instead were motivated by their pockets.”
“That is why we are happy about the information from Government that the Akufo-Addo government has begun moves to get for Ghana a fair share of the world record fines levied in the Airbus corruption scandal, in which Ghana was one of the countries most impacted by the corrupt transaction which spanned 6 years, three of them under President John Mahama and three of them with him as Vice President.
“Since the Airbus company was paid by the hard-earned money of the Ghanaian people, through Government of Ghana contracts, we the Ghanaian people deserve to be remedied for what is rightly ours and we will commend the President for pursuing our share of the $4 billion fine paid, which otherwise will go only to the three western countries where the investigations took place,” Abdul-Hamid noted.
Meanwhile, a private legal practitioner and a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Edudzi Tamakloe, last month accused Amidu of deliberately setting out to destroy the electoral chances of former President John Mahama.
According to him, Amidu’s pronouncement in the Airbus scandal is a clear orchestration to hand the 2020 elections to the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and President Akufo-Addo.
Mahama was on record to have denied any hand in the Airbus deal while serving as president of Ghana.
Back in June, he broke his silence on the issue, arguing that due diligence was followed in the purchase of the two aircraft for the Ghana Armed Forces.
