ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
On the face of the evidence presented, GO1 appears to be no other than former President John Dramani Mahama, now Presidential Candidate of the NDC for the 2020 Presidential and General Elections.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) would have been content with the swift response of the Government in referring the matter to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
Indeed, we commend H.E the President for his swift decision to refer the matter to the OSP.
It is welcome and very necessary because this is an international issue and some other countries mentioned in the Judgment have already started investigations.
The international community is in on this one.
But notwithstanding the referral to the OSP, it is important to note that the former Hon Attorney Generals intervention on behalf of Candidate Mahama is very weak and unable to directly respond to the hard facts as put out by the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
It is, therefore, necessary that former President now Candidate John Dramani Mahama responds directly to the issue himself.
Candidate Mahama is no stranger to speaking to the international community.
He has been known to assemble diplomats even if he has nothing to say except lies as demonstrated in the false tapes saga of Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency matters.
The NPP calls on Candidate Mahama to tell the whole nation what he knows about GO1 and the processes leading to the purchase of the aircraft from Airbus SE.
The serious nature and processes involved in the accusations demand immediate action to remove any stains to the name and reputation of the Republic of Ghana.
The story so far seems fairly clear.
Airbus SE, in seeking to sell Ghana three military transport planes from 2009 to 2015, actively engaged GO1, further described as the “key decision maker” in the purchase of aircraft by the then Government of Ghana.
Though the first deal for two planes was concluded in 2011, the elected government official could not have been the Late President Mills (RIP) because the evidence identifies a ‘Go-Between’, who is said to be a close relative of GO1.
The ‘Go-Between’ referred to as Intermediary 5 (I5) in the court papers, is further identified as a UK national born in Ghana.
I5 is said to have migrated to the United Kingdom as a young child and thereafter lost touch with his Ghanaian family until the late 1990s.
According to President Mahamas’ account of his sibling in his book, ‘My First Coup D’Etat’, the profile of I5 appears to fit perfectly that of the long lost and found brother.
Having been found, he conveniently surfaces to be the preferred Business Partner (BP) of Airbus in its deal with the Government of Ghana through GO1.
Remarkably but not surprisingly, I5 had no experience whatsoever in the aerospace industry.
A “CV” provided to Airbus in 2011 listed his employment before 2009 as an events manager for a local authority, director of a football merchandising company and facilities manager for an estate management business.
Yet I5 was able to initiate contact between Airbus and the Government of Ghana about aircraft sales.
Court records state that as early as January 2009, immediately power changed hands, Airbus had understandings with I5 to pursue GO1 which fed directly into the expression of interest sent out by the Government of Ghana around June 2009.
From 2009, I5 and his associates worked on the sales to the Government of Ghana without any written consultant agreement.
This included consistent liaison with GO1, as the key decision maker, regarding the potential Airbus C-295 sale.
On December 7, 2009, I5 and another registered Company D in Ghana.
A company of the same name was incorporated in the UK in February 2010.
Company D was the corporate vehicle through which I5 and his associates provided go-between services to Airbus and GO1.
In January 2011, GO1 met Company D in London and concluded that the Airbus C-295 the most suitable aircraft for the Government of Ghana’s needs.
This was reported to Airbus.
It is important to note that the two associates working directly with I5, did not have any experience of the industry either.
The two UK nationals, referred to as Intermediary 6 and Intermediary 7(both unnamed) were a UK television Actor and Film Director and a former UK television actor.
No wonder when Company D submitted a formal business partnership (BP) application in May 2011 to Airbus, it was rejected.
Following the application to be recognised as a formal BP of Airbus, Airbus commissioned an external due diligence report on Company D. The resulting report identified I5 as a shareholder and the possibility that he was a close relative of GO1.
The external due diligence report thus raised concerns that there was a risk of nonconformity with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Convention, which set corporate governance benchmarks to reduce global corruption.
To prevent detection, Company D connived with Airbus and an Intermediary 8 to falsify documents so I5 could be paid through Intermediary 8.
The consultant agreement between Intermediary 8 and Airbus was dated 20 March 2012 but said to be effective from January 1, 2010.
This was apparently to cover the period when I5 worked without a contract.
The agreement provided for a percentage commission fee of the net total amount received by Airbus under any commercial contract with the Government of Ghana for C-295 aircraft.
On 3 August 2011, the Government of Ghana signed a purchase agreement for the sale of two C-295 aircraft.
Between March 2012 and February 2014, Airbus is said to have paid Intermediary 8 a total of €3,909,756.85, nearly a million Euro over the agreed commission sum approximating €3,001,718.15.
We are further told that between 10 April 2012 and 31 July 2013 Intermediary 8 paid €3,850,115 to Company D. Intermediary 8 retained about €60,000, for services towards the deception.
An attempt to use Intermediary 8 again for the last purchase failed.
In the absence of a viable shell BP, the Government of Ghana purchased a third C-295 direct from Airbus.
This arrived on December 4, 2015, but company D did not benefit financially from it as Airbus refused to pay the promised kickback of €1,675,000.00 on the third aircraft.
In the face of these facts, it is very necessary for Candidate Mahama to come out and be heard publicly.
He cannot continue to hide behind others.
Of course we are all aware that he hates answering questions about corruption.
He will like to find out if the question is being asked as a former President, or as a Candidate of the NDC, or as a Human Being.
But answer he must, because allegedly, all fingers point to him and one of his brothers.
The companies used to receive the bribe money have been named.
The shareholder who is very close to the former President has been named.
Document falsification, kickbacks, lies and overpayments is what the Airbus scandal is all about.
And it appears John Mahama is deeply involved.
Significantly, this is just one of Mahama’s corruption scandals, where it is alleged that he personally leads the negotiations and for his close associate to execute on his behalf and collect the bribes.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Airbus issue appears similar to the Embraer investigations, which then-Attorney General, now OSP, Martin Amidu, was tasked by President Mills to do but was aborted in mysterious circumstances.
As Chairman of the Armed Forces Council, then Vice President John Mahama was frantically receiving delegations from Brazil and negotiating the acquisition of five jets, including the most expensive hangar for this poor nation, when his President appeared not to be aware of the transactions.
The late President Mills (RIP), apparently shocked and suspicious of the negotiations in the acquisition of aircraft for the Armed Forces, set up a Committee, comprising Hon William Aboah, Mr.
George Amoah and Brig.
Allotey (Rtd.
), to investigate the processes of the acquisition of five Aircraft, including Embraer 190 aircraft and hangar to the Ghana Army.
According to then-Attorney General Martin Amidu, "pressure groups never allowed the Committee to take off.
But the very fact that the late President Mills contemplated this Committee meant that he was uncomfortable with and suspicious of the alleged inflated prices of the aircraft."
The nation is still none the wiser.
This is not the first time a court has boldly declared the Mahama regime an official kleptocracy.
This is a UK court.
It confirms what the Ghanaian Supreme Court declared when it said the then Government of John Mahama was in government to “create, loot and share” public resources.
The nation has had major issues of corruption and important allegations made against John Mahama personally in his time at the helm of government.
He was personally involved in the Ford bribery scandal and the Armajaro issues, another foreign UK matter.
Indeed, as referred to already, he struggled to even answer the BBC question whether or not he’d accepted a bribe before.
So this is a test case.
A test for whether he is fit for purpose in his intent to return to the Presidency of Ghana.
Can the destiny of this nation once again be entrusted to one who is proven to have indulged the nations’ trust with self-dealing for personal enrichment?
Fit for purpose tests are now commonplace in public life where the trust of the people is at stake.
The NPP demands that Candidate Mahama come out and justify that indeed, he is fit for purpose.
Thank you for coming and May God Bless our beautiful nation.
Signed: YAW BUABEN ASAMOA
You are welcome to the fourth in our series of press conferences, meant to refocus attention on the issues that best define the leadership needs of Ghana and therefore may impact your leadership choices in the run-up to the electoral contest on 7 th December 2020.
As the media, we expect that you remain steadfast independent arbiters in helping to redirect the debate to sifting the grain from the chaff and weighing the grain in the white light of fair inquiry.
We hope that in this fast evolving media environment of competing claims, you use the versatile tools at your disposal to throw even more light on the real issues of poverty eradication and jerky growth hindering our forward march.
Your role as gatekeepers has become even more important as Covid-19 locks society down with the new normal.
You have become our eyes and ears.
So today, we ask of you.
Please use your tools to better help governance partners to focus and debate the kind of leadership Ghana needs.
Politicians, thought leaders, civil society influencers, voters, captains of industry and investment, international partners and competing fellow nations are all governance partners.
Yes, the nations with which we share common indices of development compete in the same international markets for the scarce resources that we need to develop faster.
Therefore, what our governance partners think and say of our leadership shapes the voter preferences of the people.
Ladies and gentlemen, leadership is at the heart of the 2020 elections.
National development rises and falls on leadership.
Since the advent of the 1992 Constitution, there have been two contrasting political leaderships, the NPP and NDC.
Of the two, the NPP is convinced that they have offered and delivered better leadership than the NDC.
The NPP consistently performs better.
We are better mangers of the economy.
That contrast is on offer again.
Eight years in which former President Kufuor lifted this country out of HIPC and onto the path of progress as against several arid years of IMF and World Bank direction that he inherited.
Now, we have three and a half years in which President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has had to start all over again, taking back direction from the IMF and restoring the prospect of jobs and incomes.
In this election cycle, only two candidates have a viable opportunity of getting the mandate of the Ghanaian people on December 7, 2020.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the NPP and former President now candidate John Dramani Mahama of the NDC.
As H.E President Akufo-Addo has so succinctly reminded us, the choice will be made on the records of the two since both have had opportunity to demonstrate whether or not they can deliver on the leadership needs of this country.
So, the choice before the Ghanaian people is clear- between President Akufo-Addo and candidate John Dramani Mahama, who has the vision, the commitment, the competence and the compassion to deliver a Ghana of consistent growth and prosperity?
It is the NPP’s strong contention that candidate John Dramani Mahama does not have the focus and competence necessary to take this country in the right direction.
Candidate Mahama cannot do it.
He had his chances and squandered them all.
As a former Member of Parliament, Deputy Minister of State, Cabinet Minister, Vice President and President, candidate Mahama appears to be the luckiest politician in Ghana’s Fourth Republican history.
Having experienced every political position of decision making significance in Ghana’s political structure, including six years as President, all we hear from him is that he be forgiven his mistakes so he can come back to continue experimenting with the future of our partners in governance.
Having had the most opportunity to affect Ghana’s fortunes positively, he blew it all, landing Ghana in the policy misery that saw him run to the IMF, barely 10 years after President Kufuor took us out of painful HIPC.
Candidate Mahama’s omissions so impoverished Ghana that budgetary support to essential social services were cut, including the infamous cancellation of trainee allowances.
Candidate Mahama’s omissions so impoverished Ghana that he refused the value of free SHS, blindly screaming that its implementation would collapse educational infrastructure and national finances.
Candidate Mahama’s omissions so impoverished Ghana that we could not afford fuel oil to power our energy grid.
Candidate Mahama’s omissions were so grave he supervised a caricature of financial Ponzi schemes and danced on the grave of the collapsed financial sector in Parliament, chastising Ghanaians for “looking for Alice in Wonderland” financial returns.
This is the man who wants you to entrust four years of your scarce governance resources to him.
What he could not deliver and destroyed in six years as President he wants only four years to experiment with?
What are his thoughts, what is his vision, has his attitude to decision making changed?
Do not forget, he is a self-confessed doubter.
One who is never able to make his mind about anything?
He is convinced we have short memories, but we remember Candidate Mahama’s own confessions about himself in his book, My First Coup D’état, when he states that, “All the decisions I have made in my life were REGULARLY PLAGUED WITH DOUBT.
Again, and again, I have felt like that boy Dramani, on the bicycle going downhill fast, without any brakes and NOT KNOWING WHICH WAY TO TURN.”
Former President now candidate Mahama’s record is one of riding the Presidency downhill, full of doubt and fear, without direction or brakes.
His supreme political decision was to let the IMF decide for him.
Focus versus flip-flop Ladies and gentlemen of the media, Candidate Mahama flip-flops.
He follows the wind.
As you can see, he is now converted by the forward looking policies of the current administration, the strong, focused wind generated in the wake of President Nana Akufo-Addo’s credible delivery.
Policies aimed at building a functional enabling state that provides social inclusion, human resource development and steady economic growth in an atmosphere of international stability.
So,all the policies he rejected as impossible when in power, the good governance he could not deliver, he is now saying he will do.
After Nana Addo-Addo has already delivered.
Somehow, sitting on the side lines of governance for the past three and a half years, John Mahama is inviting governance partners-media, politicians, thought leaders, civil society influencers, voters, captains of industry and investment, international partners and competing fellow nations-to believe that he has made a magical jump from crass mismanagement, incompetence and corruption to a place where he will take over and successfully continue policies he never believed in.
He believes the very lack of logic in his desire to take Ghana back into his half-baked experiments will escape the notice of Ghanaians, because he sincerely believes we have short memories of his gargantuan gaffes.
He wants the Ghanaian voter to take the ship of state away from the committed, competent and compassionate delivery of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and entrust our future fortunes to his indecisiveness whilst he attempts to learn how to do what Nana is already doing.
Visionary leadership serves as the anchor for the uncertainties and the volatility of politics.
Ever since Candidate Mahama has been in politics, he has not once articulated a vision for the transformation of anything.
Indeed, it is precisely because of his lack of vision that he follows the wind.
He follows the gravy train- wherever he perceives that there is a juicy opportunity to harvest votes, there he goes.
What does he stand for?
It is important he tells the Ghanaian voter exactly what he stands for.
We cannot have as President, one who merely obeys the wind.
We need a leader who can sail the ship of state safely to shore.
Flip-flopping, wishy-washy, indecisive leadership will wreck the ship of state.
President Mahama hated free SHS with a passion.
His government paid for over forty advertisements against it from his assumption of the Presidency.
He failed to deliver on his ill-conceived alternate of E-Blocks.
Today, he says he should be voted into office to maintain free SHS.
Well, Candidate Mahama, we are not looking for a “Maintenance Officer”.
We are looking for a President.
A Leader.
He said that he would rather lose his presidency than restore trainee allowances.
Today, he says he wants your vote to pay higher trainee allowances.He agitated against a new register, allegedly funding demonstrations and supporting threats of violence.
Then he mounted giant billboards asking people to “rise up and register.”
He instructed his party to ditch empowerment of district assemblies through the referendum.
Today he says he will pay assembly men against the dictates of the Constitution.
He cut the sod and contributed our scarce resources towards the fabled 10-billion-dollar Hope City.
Today he talks about infrastructure, conveniently forgetting the eight bedroom 14-million-dollar official residence of the Vice President of the Republic that he supervised.
In 2015 he said that ‘it will be foolish not to collateralize our oil for credit.’
Today he says he is against collateralization of our long-suffering mineral resources.
Significantly, he is also threatening to return bauxite concessions to his brother, saying “I shall return seized mining concessions to their owners”.
The bottom line is that Candidate Mahama does not stand for anything.
You cannot continue to follow the wind.
It is precisely for this reason that the saga of the missing NDC manifesto is important.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media.
Months before Covid-19 changed the world, John Mahama’s NDC set out on a perilous journey of trying to find out what Ghanaians want.
After sixteen years of NDC in the twenty-eight-year-old Forth Republic, six of those years as Government Official 1, the final decision maker in Ghana, he is still struggling to find out what Ghana’s governance priorities are.
On July 1 st , 2020, the whole world was told that Candidate Mahama had received ‘the people’s manifesto’.
He said he would launch it in August.
When the NPP announced August 22 nd , 2020 as its date for launching its manifesto, we were told theirs would follow on the 29 th August 2020.
Then came the bomb.
“Leadership of Service; Protecting Our Progress, Transforming Ghana for All” hit them so hard they hurriedly postponed to 31 st August 2020.
As we speak, we are not sure whether it will happen on 7 th September 2020 as nobody seems ready to own up to another promise.
The NPP was sure that they were not going to be able to launch it.
We knew they had to listen to the commentaries, criticisms and suggestions that have greeted our manifesto in order to try and re-write theirs, ostensibly to pander to the public debates on our manifesto.
Candidate Mahama has no vision.
He just follows the wind.
Four More to do More for You The Nana Akufo-Addo led NPP Government is clear what it wants to achieve with the support of governance partners.
In transportation, infrastructure to support multi-modal movement is being invested in alongside modernization of the transportation market.
Manufacturing of vehicles is being localized to create jobs and improve access to quality and safety.
The Transport Sector Recapitalization Project (pages 179 to 180 of the manifesto) will create affordable access to new commercial vehicles, reduce accidents, increase jobs and incomes and create real employment opportunity.
Mahama’s policy is to legalise Okada, years after he banned it in L.I 2180, without the benefit of scrutiny and analysis of the entire sector.
A major part of the intended National Equipment Leasing Policy (NELP) found on page 176 of the manifesto, will promote private sector participation in transport services to government, further opening the space for jobs and incomes.
In health, our aim is Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
How we get there is set out on page 156 and 157 of the manifesto.
The revolution includes equipment leasing under NELP and a Build, Lease, Operate and Transfer (BLOT) policy, which will integrate the large private health services on offer into a unique system of public infrastructure in partnership with private resources and expertise.
Already, we have delivered the drone service, ambulances and agenda 111 is on course.
John Mahama says he will provide free primary health care.
How he intends to from a background that resisted the passage of the NHIS law, failed to deliver on the major flagship promise of a one-time premium, imported empty cargo vans in the name of ambulances and left the NHIS under a mountain of debt, is left to conjecture.
In any event, health care on the NHIS is already free to children and the elderly.
We seek to reduce the cost of energy to accelerate industrialisation for jobs and increased incomes.
We have brought down the cost of a Kilowatt Hour from a high of 19 cents to the current average of 11 cents with strong indications of going further down to 6 cents.
In the process, we have managed to keep the lights on and give out free power in the Covid-19 alleviation space.
Our energy ambitions, as set out on page 174 of the manifesto, will over time increase usage to absorb the excess capacity cost, enable competitive exports and drive the unfolding integrated bauxite and iron and stell industries.
More jobs and incomes.
Indeed, I will encourage you all to delve deeper into Part 5 of the manifesto, starting from page 169 to 183.
There, you will find chapter 6, ‘building the private sector for accelerated growth’, where concrete measures have been set out to truly transform the private sector as the engine of growth.
Part 5 starts with Chapter 5, ‘digitisation and the transformation of the Ghanaian economy.
The interlocking digital infrastructure being rolled out there is modernising the economy at an extremely fast pace, especially the celebrated Mobile Money Payments Interoperability System, which has literally made fifteen million bank accounts on the go, giving individuals the comfort of moving money round between banks and mobile money wallets from their telephones.
John Mahama planned to attempt it for 1.2 billion dollars.
President Nana Addo had it delivered for 4.5 million dollars.
A mind boggling 22,666% differential, if my maths serves me right.
We have reduced CST (talk tax) and are moving towards reducing the cost of data whilst installing wifi across the country to boost education and commerce.
Pages 17 to 21 of the manifesto sets out what digitisation is doing to improve Government business.
The Heart of the Manifesto Ladies and gentlemen, effective economic management depends on effective management of Covid-19.