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Airbus scandal: Mahama is Government Official 1, says Special Prosecutor

The flagbearer for the National Democratic Congress, John Mahama, is implicated directly in the bribery scandal involving the European aviation giant

The former president John Mahama has been identified as Government Official 1 in the Airbus bribery scandal, the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has disclosed.

Submitting his corruption risk assessment of the Agyapa Royalties deal, Amidu said: “This Office has established the identity of elected Government Official 1 to be former President John Dramani Mahama, whose brother of the full blood is Samuel Adam Foster, also known as Samuel Adam Mahama.”

He added, “The only reason the former President [Mahama] has not been invited for interrogation (in spite of all threats from some of his followers and lawyers) is the fact that he got himself an insurance as the presidential candidate of the other largest political party in Ghana.”

“My hands are clean”

Mahama is on record as denying any involvement in the Airbus deal while serving as president of Ghana. Back in June, he broke his silence on the matter, arguing that due diligence was followed in purchasing three aircraft for the Ghana Armed Forces.

“Let me state without any equivocation that no financial benefit accrued to me. Neither was there any form of inducement in the purchase of the aircraft,” the NDC flagbearer told the state-owned Daily Graphic.

“My singular motivation was to equip and retool the Ghana Armed Forces in a manner that would make the discharge of their national and international roles efficient and less burdensome, and for all the sacrifices that our men and women in uniform make, they do not deserve less.”

Arrest warrants

The Ghana Police Service has declared the 57-year-old British television and radio actor Philip Middlemiss wanted over the role he played in the allegedly £5 million Airbus bribery saga.

In February Ghana’s Special Prosecutor launched a full-scale investigation into the Airbus scandal. He subsequently released the passport details of the actor and four other individuals as being wanted for questioning.

Middlemiss is being sought, along with four others, in relation to the £50 million sale of three Airbus C-295 military planes to Ghana.

According to the Sun newspaper, after starring in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street, Middlemiss reportedly travelled to Ghana to begin making a film. He claims he then befriended Samuel, the brother of the country’s then vice-president, before returning to the UK.

Middlemiss lives in a smart, £400,000 detached property in Greater Manchester, the Sun reported, even though he was declared bankrupt in 2012 over unpaid tax.

Suspect deal

Documents from Ghana’s Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, show that Middlemiss could have been a project manager for Airbus, the manufacturer and vendor of the planes sold to Ghana, when the alleged bribery took place.

It is also alleged that in 2010 he incorporated a company in the UK through which he assisted Airbus with the suspect deal.

Two of the individuals on the Interpol list of people wanted in connection with further enquiries into the bribery scandal as it relates to Ghana are British nationals, the Sun reported. A third is a dual national of the UK and Ghana.

Middlemiss’s girlfriend Leanne Davis told the Sun she had no knowledge of any investigation. “I don’t know anything about that. Phil’s not here. I’m not sure when he’ll be back,” she said.

Airbus confesses

The European aviation giant Airbus confessed to paying huge sums of money in bribes to government officials and people close to the seat of government in Ghana during the Mills and Mahama governments.

Court documents show that Ghana is among the countries to which Airbus doled out millions of dollars in bribes between 2011 and 2015 to strike deals through secret agents. “It was a pervasive and pernicious bribery scheme in various divisions of Airbus SE that went on for a number of years,” US District Judge Thomas Hogan said.

In January this year, it was announced that the European planemaker had agreed to pay a record settlement worth US$4 billion to regulators and anti-fraud agencies in France, the United Kingdom and the United States in connection to the Airbus saga. The scandal related to aircraft sales to five out of a total 20 countries investigated – Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. The US Department of Justice said the sum was the largest-ever foreign bribery settlement.

The bribery scheme was run by a unit, based at the Airbus headquarters in France, which the company’s one-time chief executive, Tom Enders, reportedly used to call “Bullshit Castle”.

The disclosures, made public after an investigation lasting nearly four years and spanning sales to more than a dozen overseas markets, came as courts on both sides of the Atlantic formally approved settlements which lifted a legal cloud that had hung over Europe’s largest aerospace manufacturer for years.

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