Yesterday the Presidency issued a statement on the Airbus bribery Scandal and referred the matter to the Office of the Special Prosecutor for further investigations which was a positive development on this whole Airbus brouhaha until I saw Yaw Buabeng Asamoah’s press conference and I went numb!
What is this?
How can Yaw Buabeng Asamoah who is a Lawyer of many years standing call a Press conference at the NPP Headquarters to ask former President Mahama to respond to an issue he has not even mentioned in?
This is ridiculous!
..And he says former President Mahama should respond to who, he Yaw Buabeng Asamoah?
Is he a Court or the NPP Headquarters has now become a Court of Competent Jurisdiction(this can pass for the joke of the century if you ask me)
You see Lawyer Yaw, you have sacrificed your reputation too much on the alter of empty Politics with reckless abandon and it’s time to retreat else you will soon become a Political clown….(piece of advise)
A bit of education to you Lawyer Yaw, you see Airbus basically admitted to a settlement deal to prevent a full scale trial which would have exposed them to a lot of risks(…especially risk of full disclosure).
What this means is that Airbus basically decided to snitch on Ghana and the other Countries to protect themselves from a full scale trial and a subsequent criminal prosecution of its officials.
Again Airbus basically bought themselves out of this trouble by agreeing to pay the fines imposed on them by the UK Court and in the process has dragged several Countries including our own Ghana into international controversy and ridicule.
As we speak Airbus apart from their admissions in Court(which was borne out of their desire to reach a settlement) have not been able to provide a single shred of evidence to buttress their claim of bribery to any Government official especially in the case of Ghana.( so why are we here screaming aimlessly?)
Now here is what any smart government would do…
Get your Attorney General who is the official legal representative of the government to collaborate with its International Lawyers and write to Airbus to demand more information on their allegations (because it brings the name of Ghana into disrepute in the International space).
Failure to provide those details would only lead one thing, a defamation suit against Airbus for their wild allegations.
The priority of any smart Government should be first to remedy the International embarrassment this scandal has brought unto the Country by taking Airbus on until it is satisfied that those allegations made against the State was justified.
Are you telling me that a Ghanaian Company working in the US will admit that it bribed US Government officials to get a contract and the US Government would sit down and not sue the company to provide more answers or pay damages for their false claims?
This is basic, and backed by the position of our law which says “innocent until proven otherwise”
So for Yaw Buabeng Asamoah to organise a “nag-conference” just to point fingers at the former President right after the leader of his Party( the President) has referred the matter to an agency for investigations is not only reckless but undermines the authority of the President.
Let me state emphatically that there is absolutely nothing in this Airbus issue apart from a desperate Company snitching innocent Countries just to save itself and its officials from going to jail…
So instead of falling for their bait and cutting ourselves into pieces, why not turn our guns on the snitch, Airbus!
Mensah Thompson
Executive Director, ASEPA