Airbus scandal: I did no wrong – Mahama

Former President John Mahama has dismissed claims that he benefited financially from the Airbus deal which was signed under the late President Mills.

According to him, the objective of his actions was to ensure that the Ghana Armed Forces secure the best of equipment to work with.

“Let me state without any equivocation that no financial benefit accrued to me. Neither was there any form of inducement in the purchase of the aircraft. My singular motivation was to equip and retool the Ghana Armed Forces in a manner that would make the discharge of their national and international roles efficient and less burdensome and for all the sacrifices that our men and women in uniform make, they do not deserve less.

”I am happy that the said aircraft have become the backbone of the Ghana Air Force and its operations. They are used for troop transportation, logistics deployment and medical evacuation,” the former President told the Daily Graphic in an interview.

He added: “I am proud that under my tenure as Chairman of the Armed Forces Council and as Commander-in-Chief, the security services saw the biggest retooling and equipping in the history of Ghana.”

The aircraft were purchased for the military when Mr Mahama was the Vice-President and Chairman of both the Armed Forces Council and the Police Council.

Mr Mahama said as Vice-President between January 7, 2009 and July 24, 2012, he was assigned responsibility for the Ghana Armed Forces Council and the Police Council by the then President John Evans Atta Mills, who retained the Chairmanship of the National Security Council.

Mr Mahama explained that at the time of the acquisition of the aircraft and other equipment, Ghana’s security services required retooling.

“The Police Service had an ageing fleet of Peugeot and Mahindra vehicles, the Ghana Navy had no vessel with which to patrol our coastal waters, the Ghana Air Force had only one functional 37-year-old F27 aircraft, which was still flying, only because of the ingenuity of our aeronautical engineers,” he said.

Mr Mahama said the Infantry Brigade of the Ghana Army relied on old Dongfeng trucks and a fleet of smoking pick-up vehicles, the Prisons Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, and the National Security Council Secretariat were virtually immobile due to lack of equipment.”