Airbus bribery scandal: Former government appointees not cooperating with investigations – Godfred Dame

Deputy Attorney General has said former officials in the erstwhile Mills-Mahama NDC administration are not cooperating with ongoing investigations into the Airbus bribery scandal.

Godfred Dame at a high-level anti-graft meeting on Tuesday described this development as worrying. Ghana was cited among five countries in which the European aviation giant, 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.

In court documents and hearings, Airbus admitted five counts of failing to prevent bribery, using a network of secret agents to pay large-scale backhanders to officials in foreign countries, including Ghana, to land high-value contracts.

President Akufo-Addo, following the ruling, wrote to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to commence investigations into the scandal.

Mr Dame said the Attorney General’s office, on behalf of the OSP has written to the British government seeking information about the identities of the Ghanaians involved in the purchase of three Airbus C-295 between 2009 and 2015.

He, however, expressed surprise that the officials involved have not come clean to the Ghanaian people about the roles they played.

Recounting lessons learned from the UK judicial system which unraveled the said scandal, Mr Dame said it was largely motivated by the “readiness and willingness of the company in question to admit the fact and to open up their purse to the scrutiny of investigators.

”Mr Dame said the full legal processes will be pursued if the people involved refuse to cooperate.

Source:Fiilafmonline/JoyNews