Airbus scandal: Attorney General names Mahama as Government Official 1
A Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Dame, has named former President John Dramani Mahama as Government Official One in the controversial Airbus scandal.
The government legal adviser gave the hint while addressing the opening of a two-day conference organised by the Attorney General Alliance Africa.
The European aerospace giant, Airbus, confessed to paying bribes in Ghana and other countries between 2011 and 2015 in a corruption investigation of its business deals dating back to more than a decade.
Even though the report did not specifically mention the names of the persons involved, it only referred to the ‘highly elected government official’ as ‘Government Official 1’.
Explosive document: Airbus confesses sharing bribes in Ghana as £3bn corruption fine bites
But Mr. Dame is of the strong conviction that the person named only as ‘Government Official One’ in the scandal could only be the former President.
“The key government officials of Ghana who negotiated illicitly for fraud to get three aircraft for Ghana have maintained utter silence about the same as if there were no such transactions or the principal actors do not exist.
“Many of the senior government officials involved in the illicit procurement of the aircraft are still around but continue to maintain utter silence. There was a reprehensible inference to the explicit findings of the court.
“At least there was a Vice President who transformed into a President during the period in question. While maintaining his silence contrary to tenet of accountability to the people, probity, and integrity, he is rather remarkably campaigning to the same people he does not want to open up to on the Airbus scandal,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo last month referred the matter to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) for a probe into the deal.
But barely a month into the investigation, the Deputy Attorney General said the government is keen on identifying persons involved in the controversial deal.
“We have written to the Serious Fraud Office to unravel the names of the officials in the scandal.”
He said the government was bent on identifying those involved in the scandal to take legal action against them while saving the image of the country.
This dude is a poor excuse for a deputy attorney general. What evidence has he uncovered that implicates the former president? And more disconcerting, why is he usurping the role of the special prosecutor who has been charged with investigating the Airbus bribery scandal? The deputy ag ought to clam up.