The Airbus bribery scandal has cast a long shadow over the political career of John Dramani Mahama, the Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has resurfaced with explosive revelations from his brother, Samuel Adam Mahama.
Just days before Ghana’s critical 2024 general elections, Samuel Mahama has admitted to receiving €2.75 million for facilitating the sale of three military aircraft, valued at approximately €90 million, to the Government of Ghana by Airbus SE.
In a four-hour exclusive interview with The Africa Report, Samuel Mahama, who served as a middleman in the deal, revealed that Airbus likely hired him in 2009 because of his familial ties to John Mahama, then Vice-President of Ghana.
Samuel Mahama also conceded that John Mahama, as a senior government official, was involved in the arms deal facilitated by him (Samuel), contrary to claims by John Mahama that Airbus dealt directly with Ghanaian authorities.
He confirmed many central claims made public by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Department of Justice in 2020, accepting that he and Philip Middlemiss, a British actor, facilitated Airbus’s supply of C-295 military transport aircraft to Ghana. He admitted that neither he nor Middlemiss had any prior experience in the aerospace industry.
He accepted that Airbus paid them €2.75m and circumvented its compliance system by paying them indirectly through a third party, an approach the Office of the Special Prosecutor has described as “wrongful and deceptive.”
When asked about specific interactions with his brother, Samuel Mahama confirmed the SFO’s claim that he, John Mahama, and Airbus executives met in London in January 2011 to discuss the C-295 project—a meeting the OSP indicated ought reasonably to have occurred to Mr Mahama that it was bound “to raise reasonable suspicions of improper conduct”.
Samuel Mahama also confirmed the veracity of an email dated 9 November 2013, which the SFO cited in its public summary of the case against Airbus. In that email, Samuel Mahama told an Airbus executive: “I am hoping to meet [my brother] tomorrow, so hopefully will have some more news tomorrow. I believe they all need you to arrive in order for us to move it forward.”
When asked why he was meeting John Mahama in November 2013, Samuel Mahama said the president’s help was sometimes needed to advance the C-295 project.
“Sometimes he needs to shout at someone to say, ‘Why is this stuck here?” Samuel Mahama told The Africa Report.
“These are the things that they [Airbus] write to me, asking me to help them with,” he recalled of his involvement. “He [an Airbus executive] writes to me directly saying, ‘Please, can you pass this on to your brother?’”
Ghana’s special prosecutor found no evidence of corruption but accepted the SFO’s finding that Airbus executives deliberately circumvented the company’s own compliance rules by routing payment to Samuel Mahama and Middlemiss through a third party. The OSP called that approach “wrongful and deceptive.”
According to the SFO, Airbus compliance staff had objected to the involvement of individuals “close to the decision makers” in Ghana in the project. Samuel Mahama confirmed that Airbus executives told him that, because of his family ties, he would have to be paid indirectly.
Asked about Airbus’s methods at the time, Samuel Mahama said: “It was a culture of it.” A culture of what? “Of what they were doing around the world, a culture of they’re bribing.”
“It wasn’t a few rogue employees,” he continued. “It was more than that.”
For nearly five years, the Mahama family has been embroiled in a vast corruption scandal. In January 2020, the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the United States Department of Justice revealed that Airbus had agreed to pay €3.6bn in fines after admitting to “endemic” corruption around the world.
In particular, the aerospace company admitted that it had failed to prevent its executives from bribing a senior elected official in Ghana via that official’s brother and a friend of the brother. The corruption, Airbus continued, took place in the context of its sale of three military aircraft—estimated at €90m—to Ghana’s government.
Western authorities withheld the names of the individuals involved. However, the SFO published enough information in its summary of the case that Ghanaian media soon identified them. Later, the Office of the Special Prosecutor confirmed that the incriminated official was John Mahama, Ghana’s Vice President from 2009 to 2012 and President from 2012 to 2017.
Though the OSP said it did not find evidence of wrongdoing, it chastised the former President for having private meetings with Airbus officials and raised concerns over the involvement of Samuel Mahama, John Mahama’s blood brother.
The OSP stated, “The familial relationship between former President Mahama and Foster (Samuel Mahama) and the direct participation by former President Mahama in the communications and meetings with Airbus officials were bound to raise reasonable suspicions of improper conduct and dealings.”
