Ex government officials indicted in the Airbus scandal in the interest of probity and accountability must present themselves for questioning instead of remaining silence or indifferent to the scandal.
Godfred Yebuah Dame, a Deputy Attorney General (AG) and Deputy Minister of Justice said while government has called for investigations into the Airbus scandal, ex government officials on the other hand ought to answer questions by embarking on what he termed as “self-reporting” to institutions set to investigate the issue.
The Deputy AG was speaking at the opening of a two weeks training programme on “Promotion of Rule of Law and Judiciary in Africa” for 100 lawyers selected across the country.
The programme, organized by Ghana Bar Association (GBA) and the Deutsche Gellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ GmbH), aims at offering professional development as well as network among lawyers.
He said there are lots of lessons that needed to be drawn from the United Kingdom Court which heard the Airbus scandal which involved 26 countries including Ghana.
Douglas Dame noted that in spite clear and unconverted facts of the Airbus case, key government officials who negotiated the illicitly procured aircraft for the country, have maintained “utter silence as if there was no such transaction or the principal actors do not exist.
Ghana is one of five countries in which the European aviation giant, Airbus, paid or attempted to pay millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for contracts, leading a court in Britain to slap a fine of £3 billion on the company.
In court documents and hearings, Airbus admitted five counts of failing to prevent bribery, using a network of secret agents to pay large-scale backhanders to officials in foreign countries, including Ghana, to land high-value contracts.
In England, it is the openness, transparency , self-reporting and voluntarily cooperation shown by other key actors in the Airbus scandal abroad which motivated the Serious Fraud office there to execute the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with Airbus SE also known as Airbus Scandal.
