Airbus scandal: Special Prosecutor “did a shoddy job”, says Owusu Bempah

The convener of the Fixing the Country movement, Ernest Owusu Bempa has said that his movement is giving the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) 14 days to reinvestigate the Airbus scandal case

Speaking on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Monday (12 August), “We are saying that we are giving the OSP 14 days to open the case and make sure that he reinvestigates the case again, get all the documents he is fortunate to have gotten.

According to Owusu Bempah, he finds it difficult to understand why the OSP claims to not have enough evidence on the Airbus scandal case.

“Airbus themselves agreed to pay a penalty of about €4 billion to the people involved for allegedly the crime that they’ve committed in paying bribes to government officials. So what evidence does the Special Prosecutor needs when it comes to the evidence that has been clearly put out there.”

He added that the OSP has been given all the adequate resources that any investigative body should have in any part of Africa or any part of the world to carry out an independent investigation.

“So the OSP, we can say that simply did a shoddy job and that the culprits to answer charges against them and not to engage in whitewashing as he has done right now on the whole investigative report.”

“Secondly, Airbus had already accepted the complicity of the officials, hence the defer prosecution agreement by the US justice and then UK Fraud office.”

Owusu Bempah emphasised that the OSP’s report that there isn’t enough evidence is ‘ridiculous’, “So I don’t see why the OSP is coming out with such such a ridiculous report and telling the whole nation that there has not no evidence against.”

“Why is he there as a Special Prosecutor?”

He added that the OSP’s report is totally unacceptable.

“I mean, the evidence I’ve showed you and I’ve explained to you that about themselves, the giver of the bribe, the giver or the person who negotiated for the deal to go through the court,  .

“… It means that some monies were paid, but the intention of gift giving may not be interpreted in the same way by the recipient as it is by the giver of the gift. Why is it that Ghana, we are just trying to whitewash this and get away with it.”

He added that one of the individuals named in the scandal, former President John Dramani Mahama is seeking to contest as president hence the need for a thorough investigation on the matter.

“Let’s not forget we are a country that has a history of a political party where its leader is now seeking the highest office of the land came out of a revolution where people died out of corruption.”

“Somebody whose political party came out of revolution and seeking the highest office of the land has been involved in such big corruption scandal in the world and we are leaving it just like that as a country and the OSP say, Oh, it doesn’t have anything to do with it. And so we should leave it with it,” Owsu Bempah said. 

Petition

He added that the Fixing the Country Movement will petition President Akufo-Addo to trigger a public inquiry in camera.

“We’ve done it before; national reconciliation when President Rawlings was brought before the people of Ghana to come and answer questions on the revolution. We believe that this can be done.

“So Mahama must come and sit before the people of Ghana and exonerate himself. What did he know about the Airbus matter? With competent people sitting on the commission of inquiry set by the president to make sure that John Mahama and his accomplices come before the people of Ghana to answer questions.”

He added that in order not to set a bad precedent in this country the former president must be held accountable.

“We don’t want to set a bad precedent because the country went into a revolution because of corruption and people lost their lives… “

“… we’re sending a petition to the US embassy, the British High Commission, all anti-corruption agencies and all the security agencies who come into this matter to address it head-on.

“As a nation, we need to take it seriously and deal with it head-on… it’s a very serious matter, but some might argue that it’s part of the business of institution building that we should allow.”

“Government Official 1”

The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, mentioned John Dramani Mahama as one of the referenced individuals in the UK and US court judgments that indicted the Airbus company and a number of top government officials.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday (8 August), the Special Prosecutor said John Mahama did not play any role in the scandal and found no corruption or corruption-related offence against the former president and his brother, Samuel Adam Mahama.

The Airbus deal

Ghana bought three military airplanes – C295s – from Airbus. The nation received its first C295 in November 2011. The second aircraft was received in April 2012 and the third in November 2015.

The deals covering them were argued at the time to be in line with the 2009-2012 Strategic Plan of the Ghana Armed Forces.

All three purchases, approved by Ghana’s Parliament after heated disagreements on the floor, were marketed by the government of the day as a drive to modernise Ghana’s Air Force.

Funding for the first two C295s came from a €60,034,636 loan facility from Deutsche Bank SAE.

A further €11.75 million loan from Fidelity Bank Ghana Ltd was also approved by Parliament during the period for the acquisition of two DA42 MPP Guardian surveillance aircraft for the Ghana Air Force.

The House also approved a total loan sum of US$105,370,177.09 from the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) for the purchase of an Embraer E190 jet for Ghana.

The Embraer agreement was to cover related spare parts, appropriate accessories as well as the construction of a hangar big enough to house three large aircraft.

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