Antigraft body, the Citizens Movement Against Corruption has expressed concern about the ability of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to swiftly and efficiently deliver on the airbus bribery scandal.
President Akufo-Addo has instructed the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, to collaborate with UK officials to probe the alleged bribery of some Ghanaian officials by aerospace company Airbus.
Court documents and a deferred prosecution agreement revealed that Ghana is one of five countries that airbus paid or attempted to pay bribes to between 2009 and 2015.
The company admitted to five counts of failing to prevent bribery. In the case of Ghana, Airbus said its employees made or promised success based commission payments of approximately five million euros to an intermediary who is a close relative of a high ranking elected Ghanaian government official.
Speaking to Regina Borley Bortey on the Starr Midday News, co-chair of the citizens movement against corruption Edem Senanu charged president Akufo-Addo to provide the necessary logistics and human resources for the OSP following his referral to the office to handle the case.
He said “this is really in reference to the office and not to the person. It is specifically because we’ve had quite a number of cases already that have been put in the office’s bosom and we’ve not had swift information on investigations, prosecution or sanctions.”
He explained that “what that means is that they are existing outstanding cases that is in the ambit for which we haven’t yet gotten to a point where we are hearing anything about prosecution or sanction or acquittal or whatever. And so whiles we are excited that the president has quickly moved to assign this and asked that something should be done about it, the question is whether in its current state, the last check they still had 3 investigators, we are wondering whether we are going to get a swift response from the office.”
“The name of Ghana as it were has been brought into disrepute, this has affected our corporate brand as a country and as people,” he noted.
Mr Senanu fuehrer stated “I’m not raising the questions about the ability to investigate, not at all. There’s only one issue that we are raising concern about, that is the swiftness. So it’s not about the competency, it is about whether there is the human resource and other logistics to do this as quickly as possible which is the kind of thing that citizens will expect so that we get an answer as to who was behind this.”
He added, “if the president has assigned the OSP to do this, the president should also move swiftly to ensure that all the logistical and human resource is provided so that they can act, as well as the outstanding cases.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
