Airbus scandal: JM set up bogus company to receive bribes, sold integrity for €5m – NPP

Mr John Mahama, as President of Ghana, set up a “bogus” company through which he received bribes in connection with the Airbus scandal, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has told journalists at a press conference.

The scandal, which was jointly investigated by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, the French Parquet National Financier, and the United States Department of Justice, concluded that between 2009 and 2015, Airbus engaged “intermediary 5”, identified as Samuel Adam Mahama, brother of Mr John Mahama, for the sale of two aircraft to the government of Ghana.

An amount of €3.8 million was paid to them in connection with the transaction.

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Deputy campaign manager of the NPP, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, said: “Despite the case having been exposed, however, the Mahama brothers continued to demand that the rest of the bribe be rightfully paid them, according to court documents”.

“This is greed with impunity,” he said at the press conference held on Friday, 4 December 2020, indicating that the former President, who is now the presidential candidate of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), “directed his brother to set up a bogus company in Ghana to receive bribe payments.”

According to the Minister of Zongo and Inner-city Development, the Mahama brothers put together “fake documents to collect bribe money from Airbus after the company’s compliance officials said they could not pay Samuel Mahama’s company because he was the brother of a sitting president.”

The phony documents, he noted, were channeled through a Spanish company to cash the bribe money, which was then transferred to the Mahamas.

He further alleged that in a separate corrupt deal with the company, Mr Mahama, as President, had been working on another contract involving three more aircraft with Airbus when the tide turned against him.

“This could have fetched him an additional 10 million Euros or even more,” he said.