Airbus saga “make or break” for Amidu – Martin Kpebu

Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu, says the Airbus saga investigations will be a defining moment for Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu.

According to him the excitement that greeted the appointment of Mr Amidu as Ghana’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor has dwindled as Ghanaians are not seeing significant investigations and prosecutions from the ‘Citizen Vigilante’.

Speaking on Joy News’ Newsfile,  the public interest lawyer says he sees the Airbus scandal as one of the important cases which need finality due to the involvement of a top government official and other Ghanaians whose identities have not been disclosed publicly.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo referred the case to the Office of the Special Prosecutor after it emerged that a UK court has fined Airbus, European aerospace giant, 3billion pounds.

Airbus settled for the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) after admitting to paying bribes in several countries including Ghana to push plane purchase agreements.

UK court documents show approximately €3.9m was paid through a Spanish company and the fund eventually landed into the hands of a close relative of an elected government official who was in power from 2009 to 2015 when the transaction took place.

There is a media manhunt for the identity of these intermediaries and the government official involved in the deal. Mr Amidu has been tasked to investigate the saga that happened under the Mills and Mahama presidencies between 2009 and 2015.

While calling for governmental support for Mr Amidu to expedite the process, Mr Kpebu notes that: “So far we have been interested in the conspiracy theories far more than reaching out to Mr Amidu to find out what he is doing because you know, so far, Mr Amidu’s support and the euphoria we all had on his appointment has fast dwindled”.
“This one is a make or break for him,” he emphasises.

In his opinion, the public should rather throw the searchlight on the help that Mr Amidu needs to be able to finish the investigation quickly “because people’s reputation is at stake and even apart from that, as Ghanaians, we are also curious”.

He believes the high-profile case is of concern because apart from “Mahama Ayariga’s botched probe” the country has not seen much from Mr Amidu.

Mr Kpebu asks whether Mr Amidu has written a reply to the request of the presidency and tendered in an official request from the UK Authorities.

The public interest lawyer pointed out that the Mutual Legal Assistance Act is operational in the country. Hence Ghana can communicate with the UK and other countries and they will gladly assist to unveil the names.

It took a collaborative effort between the US, UK and France to probe the corruption deal and slap the biggest anti-corruption fine on the aircraft manufacturer.

Mr Kpebu bemoaned the lack of frequent update from Mr Amidu who has been tasked to investigate insisting the public should know whether the government “paid more than we should have originally paid for the aircraft”. He suspects bloating of the actual cost.

He challenged authorities to do the needful to have government funds committed to the transactions refunded.

“We should be interested in recovering the monies” and not necessarily jail terms, he stressed, adding “we don’t do well in retrieving monies”.