Fixing The Country Movement wade in Airbus Bribery Scandal

Fixing the Country Movement has announced the preparation to petition the Office of the Special Prosecutor and the Attorney General’s Department to begin an inquiry into the Airbus scandal.

Addressing a press conference in Accra, the group believe that former President John Dramani Mahama is neck-deep in the Airbus scandal.

Convener of the group, Ernest Kofi Owusu Bempah who addressed the media said the aircraft maker (Airbus) has admitted using intermediaries over several years to bribe government officials and airlines executives to win lucrative contracts in the world including Ghana.

He indicated that after the scandal, Airbus SE agreed to pay nearly four billion dollars to resolve foreign bribery and other charges with authorities in the United States, Britain and France.

Mr Bempah noted that the former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu concluded in his investigations that former President Mahama is the beneficiary architect of the Airbus deal, of which official UK government records referred to him as Government Official 1.

“The company admitted hiring the brother of a top elected Ghanaian official as its consultant in the sale of the aircraft. Also, Airbus confessed to paying the said consultant through a third party when its Compliance Unit raised red flags about the close relationship between the consultant and the top elected official who was a key decision-maker in the purchase of the military aircraft.

Everyone privy to the core details of the series of court documents published by the Department of Justice (DOJ) of the United States and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) of the United Kingdom cannot allege ignorance of the persons who have brought our nation into this international shame,” he said.

Mr Owusu Bempah added that the Airbus corruption scandal is the biggest corruption case ever in the history of Ghana expressing the hope that the group’s petition against former President John Mahama on the Airbus corruption will see the light of day.

Read the full press statement below:

STATEMENT BY FIXING THE COUNTRY MOVEMENT AT A PRESS CONFERENCE HELD

ON 5TH SEPTEMBER, 2021 IN ACCRA ON JOHN MAHAMA; THE GRANDPAPA OF CORRUPTION

Ladies and gentlemen of the Press, it is my pleasure to welcome you to yet another edition of FIXING THE COUNTRY MOVEMENT media interaction.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, what would you say if Osama Bin Laden called someone a “terrorist”, if a prostitute called another woman a “whore”, or if Saddam Hussein called another leader a “dictator?” No doubt you would probably die laughing at the irony. Yet we in Ghana have tolerated the irony of John Mahama to the extent that his utterances have now gone beyond the pale.

The thought of John Mahama pretending to be offering corruption advice to the Akufo-Addo regime sounds farcical.

Indeed, the self-glorification rhetoric of John Mahama has gotten to us so much that we need to get a few pesky facts out of the way.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, in the past few months after his humiliating defeat in the December 2020 general elections and the abortive challenge at the Supreme Court, John Mahama has resorted to a national “thank-you-tour” with the primary message that President Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Government is corrupt.

This is all to do with his ambition to return to the seat as Head of State, but failing to examine his own tenure in office; the ugly legacy of being the first-ever President to be booted out of office in a popular election mainly as a result of running a government that had no agenda than the siphoning of the public purse.

This is the man who the former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu had concluded that is the beneficiary architect of the stinking Airbus deal, of which official UK government records refer him as Government Official One.

  Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu Greater Accra Regional Correspondent