You are calling on your supporters and Ghanaians to join you on the street to stage a massive demonstration to ask for a refund of fees paid to transaction advisors, including law firms for services rendered per a contract? (Note: Databank has received no money for work done so far. Databank was only to earn a success fee at the end of the transaction).
That is why, with tongue in cheek, I wish to proclaim: I love the NDC! Fantastic bunch of patriots! Bless them!
But a small piece of pro bono advice to John Mahama’s campaign team: since you are going on a street protest because you love Ghana so much, why don’t you, the NDC, begin with a demonstration for the return of millions of bribe money that the giver, Airbus, has confessed to prosecutors in (1) France, (2) US and (3) UK, to have paid allegedly through a brother of the person you retained as your presidential candidate?
Not my words! Not my assessment, not my investigation, not my prosecution and certainly not my Crown Court judgment.
Surely, if you can protest over an anti-corruption risk assessment over a transaction that has been put on hold and under review, then doing same for the biggest global corruption scandal ever on which judgment has been given and Ghana government official(s) mentioned as allegedly receiving millions of Euros in bribery, should be pretty easy. (See Case No: U20200108 in the Crown Court at Southwark, London, UK.)
Why so? Let’s look at Paragraph 134 (page 67 of 104) of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) of the USA on the Airbus matter, which mentions the figures involved.
I had done well to restrain myself all this while from commenting on the Airbus deal.
I had limited my only comment last February to questioning why it was just the western governments benefitting from the record penalty payment of $4 billion and not victim countries including Colombia, Ghana, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
But this push by the NDC on Agyapa really takes the mickey.
At paragraph 135 of the DPA, it is stated clearly with evidence of correspondence to back, that, “Beginning in or around 2009, a few months after Individual 1 [Government Official 1 in UK court] took office, Individual 1 was in direct and repeated contact with senior airbus executives…
Individual 1 was influential in having the Government of Ghana approve aircraft purchases and Individual 1 contacted Airbus senior executives during the government approval process.”
Beyond blood contact, the intermediary (Consultant 4 or Intermediary 5) had NO CONTRACT to back his entire involvement in the government transaction with Airbus, but he got paid millions in Euros and, per the court records, as a “conduit.”
See Paragraph 134 of the DPA for the millions of Euros that prosecutors concluded that “In fact, Airbus or its vendors had paid, offered, or agreed to pay political contributions, fees, or commissions in connection with these sales…”
Indeed, there are emails to the effect that Intermediary 5, the brother of Individual 1 (Govt Official 1) was still claiming a small change of 71,393 Euros as left outstanding, even after receiving six zero sums. See Para 143.
While at it, look at Para 136 of the DPA about how closely Individual 1 and his brother Consultant 4 (Intermediary 5) worked in the same loop on this transaction as evidenced by emails in the custody of prosecutors and confessed to by Airbus senior executives.
Look further at Para 181 of the Statement of Facts (page 36 of 40), the UK court files, which shows that the brother “and his associates worked on the sales to the Government of Ghana without any written agreement.
This included liaison with Government Official 1 regarding the potential Airbus C-295 sale.”
You can advance your curiosity further to para 182, which talks about joint meetings in London with Government Official 1, Airbus officials and his brother who had no written contract but ended up being paid the alleged bribes in the centre of the whole prosecution case. See also Paras 172, 173, 183 and 184 of the Statement of Facts.
Another advice to the NDC: focus on trying to convince Ghanaians, if possible, that you offer something perhaps better than the opportunity you squandered just four years ago.
I’d restrained myself all this while from commenting on the Airbus saga. But, if as it is stated in paragraph 173 of the Statement of Facts, Government Official 1 saw nothing wrong with actively facilitating an aircraft deal with his brother as a consultant (intermediary) when that brother, “had no prior experience or expertise in the aerospace industry”, then we should pause for a moment.
The NDC is, of course, free to go on a demonstration because Ken Ofori-Atta’s company, which has won 8 annual awards as the best securities company in Ghana, is involved in an IPO.
This is not equalisation! You can’t equate a crown court judgment of a bribery case after a guilty plea, to a transaction that, per a presidential response to all the issues, has been put on hold for review until the 2020 general elections are over.
If the NDC is so confident of winning the 2020 presidential race and also taking majority seats in Parliament, then they would have a more clinical option of canceling the whole deal after December 7.
Ghanaians will have no problem any other group or political party organising such a protest walk, but not the NDC under John Mahama!
The NDC must surely take Ghanaians for a joke.
Source: Mypublisher24