The government has begun moves to get for Ghana its ‘fair share’ of the world record fines levied in the Airbus corruption scandal in which Ghana was one of the countries most affected by the corrupt transaction.
The Minister for Inner-City and Zongo Development, Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, who disclosed this yesterday, said $30 million out of $3.9 billion on fines imposed on Airbus relates to actions taken on the Ghana side.
Main Scandal
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the United States authorities in documents sent to court quoted at least €5 million as payment of kickbacks to a top Ghanaian official through an intermediary who is a close relative of “a high-ranking elected Ghanaian government official” during the Mahama administration.
Key Actors
There are six key actors involved in the corruption-infested case regarding Ghana, and the UK investigators from the SFO have lined them up as Government Official 1 (high ranking and elected), Intermediary 5 (British national and close relative of Government Official 1), Company D (corporate vehicle for Intermediary 5 – shareholder), Intermediary 6 (British national and associate of Intermediary 5), Intermediary 7 (British national and associate of Intermediary 5), as well as Intermediary 8 (Spanish company and front for Intermediary 5).
In the UK Crown Court documents, the SFO names the elected NDC guru as ‘Government Official 1’ and that powerful official is the same person being referred to as ‘Individual 1’ in the US court documents.
In the same vein, ‘Intermediary 5’ in the UK court documents who has been described as the brother of the powerful elected official in Ghana is the same person being referred to as ‘Consultant 4’ by the US authorities.
GO1 Unveiled
Later, the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) headed by Martin Amidu, who recently resigned, said the Government Official 1 was former President John Dramani Mahama and the Intermediary 5 was Samuel Adam Forster, also known as Samuel Adam Mahama.
News Conference
Addressing a news conference in Accra yesterday, Dr. Abdul-Hamid, who is the NPP Deputy National Campaign Chairman, stated that the bribery and corruption scandal “spanned for a period of six years – three of them were under the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Presidential Candidate, John Dramani Mahama, as Vice-President and three of them under him as President.”
According to him, the government has, since June this year, engaged an international law firm “with extensive experience in investigation and anti-corruption to see how they may best assist Ghana to repatriate its share of the fines.”
“Since the airbus company was paid by the hard-earned money of the Ghanaian people through the Government of Ghana contract, we the Ghanaian people deserve to be remedied for what was rightly ours and we would commend President Akufo-Addo for pursuing our share of the four billion dollar fine which otherwise would go only to the three Western countries where the investigations took place,” the minister intimated.
Similar Move
He said the government approach was not without precedent and cited an example that in 2008, the United States, Switzerland and Kazakhstan established an NGO called Bota Foundation to manage the return of over $100 million that had been paid in bribes to top Kazak officials through US and Swiss bank accounts.
“This process allowed the repatriated funds to be used towards projects of top importance to the Kazak Government, ultimately benefiting the Kazak people,” he revealed.
Dr. Abdul-Hamid said again in the Kyrgyzstan case, the US repatriated “stolen assets” from the prior Kyrgyz regime of Kurmanbek Saliyevich Bakiyev and his son, Maxim Bakiyev, which had been identified in a New York insider trading case and which were collected and approved for repatriation.
“The Kyrgyz Republic agreed to use the funds to improve public access to health care and new water supply system for rural populations,” the minister submitted and added that the “government will propose that any share of the fine recovered be used exclusively to enhance capabilities of Ghana’s anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies.”
Mahama Involvement
He said former President Mahama and his family “are embroiled” in what was described by the US Department of Justice as “the largest global foreign bribery case today,” adding that the expanse of the crime was “unearthed in a three-country investigation with court documents released by the United States District Court of Columbia (case no. 12CR00021TFH).”
France’s Tribunal Judicial De-Paris referenced PMF16159000839 and the United Kingdom Court at Seaborg (Royal Court of Justice case number U200200108) spoke to the “complexity of the crime committed.”
“The fact that an international company was able to penetrate to the highest level of the land and further go on to pay bribes is an indictment on those who sold their integrity and used their public office for private gain.
“It is a scare on those who were entrusted to seek for the common good of all Ghanaians, but instead, were motivated by their personal pockets,” the minister indicated.
Joint Investigation
He continued that the Airbus affair, which was jointly investigated by the UK’s SFO, the French Parquet National Financier and US Department of Justice, concluded that Airbus “between 2009 and 2015 engaged Intermediary 5 identified as Samuel Adam Mahama (John Mahama’s brother) for the sale of two aircraft to the Government of Ghana.”
According to him, an amount of £3.8 million was paid to the Mahamas before the “exposure of the criminal activity.
“Despite the case having been exposed, however, the Mahama brothers continued to demand the rest of the bribe be rightfully paid to them, according to court documents. This is greed with impunity.”
Impunity
“Ghana’s case has been singled out due to the impunity linked to the Mahamas determination to continue cashing in on bribes in the face of international exposure, when he directed his brother to set up a bogus company in Ghana to receive bribe payments,” he stated.
The minister said according to court documents, the Mahama brothers (candidate John Mahama and Samuel Adam Mahama) confected fake documents in order to collect bribe money from Airbus after the company’s Compliance Officials said they could not pay Samuel Adam Mahama’s company because he was the brother of a sitting President.
“The fake documents were channeled through a Spanish company to cash the bribe money which was then transferred to the Mahamas,” he indicated.
Another Corrupt Deal
“In a separate corrupt deal with the company, John Mahama as substantive President had been working on another contract involving three more aircrafts to Airbus when the tide turned against him. This could have fetched him an additional €10 million or even more,” Dr. Abdul-Hamid alleged.
Information Minister
Earlier, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah also confirmed the effort to retrieve at least $30 million through the Airbus fines, saying “since June, this year, we have been engaging with an international law firm that has got extensive experience in investigations and anti-corruption to see how they can best assist Ghana to repatriate our share of the fines, which can be put to good use.
“We are optimistic that working through this channel (the law firm), we believe that we will be able to at least retrieve the $30 million component that accrues to Ghana repatriated to Ghana so that we can put to good use in enhancing our anti-corruption institutions.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu