The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has justified the investigative work it did on the Airbus scandal which identified former President John Dramani Mahama as the Government Official 1 but no evidence of bribery against him.
The OSP said it upheld an impartial approach and assessed all the available documents. in arriving at the conclusion.
“The OSP has found no evidence of corruption involving John Mahama or others. throughout the investigations, the OSP upheld an impartial approach rigorously assessing all available evidence and safeguarding the process from external interference,” the OSP posted on X.
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
A further €11,750,000 million loan from the Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited was also approved by Parliament during the period for the acquisition of two DA42 MPP Guardian surveillance aircraft for the Ghana Airforce.
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.
Prior to the Parliamentary approval of the loan agreements, Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu had slammed the deals as both questionable and non-transparent, adding that the contract sums had been padded by the government.
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.
In November 2014, then President John Mahama had announced that Ghana planned to acquire more Military equipment, including five Super Tucanos, Mi-17s and four Z-9s, for the Ghana Airforce.
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.
The court, in its decision on such applications, considers among other things, whether or not the DPA before it is in the public interest.
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.
The court took the view that prosecuting Airbus now would among other things, lead to massive job losses and decimate the company’s performance on the stock market in the immediate to long term.
Independent estimates suggest Airbus could easily haemorrhage some £200 billion in the long term if it faced prosecution immediately.
French and US authorities have also found similar evidence of alleged bribery involving Airbus officials and or their agents in other countries, including Russia and China.
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.
The first agreement to pay bribes in Ghana was to involve some €5 million which was disguised as a Commission to an intermediary – “intermediary 5” – engaged by Airbus to promote its proposal to sell two C295 aircraft to Ghana.
Subsequent approaches by Airbus succeeded, resulting in Ghana buying 3 C259 aircrafts through the multinational’s Spanish defence subsidiaries at separate times.
The deals were arranged through a number of intermediaries led by “intermediary 5”, said to be an unnamed relative of a powerful Ghanaian official who, at the relevant time, was in a decision-making position over the proposed aircraft purchase agreements.
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.
Indeed, ongoing investigations mean that while the SFO might, in the light of Airbus’ cooperation thus far, forgo prosecuting the aircraft manufacturer, it may, after the investigations bring criminal actions against the persons who actually paid or received the bribes complained of.