The Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Dame has said the former erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) are refusing to cooperate with the ongoing investigations into the Airbus bribery scandal.

He described the former state officials’ non-compliance with ongoing investigations as worrying.

Ghana was cited among five countries in which the European aviation giant, Airbus, paid or attempted to pay millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for contracts. The aviation giant as a result of this misconduct attracted a fine of £3 billion from a court in Britain.

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.

Following the ruling, the president of the republic, Akufo-Addo, wrote to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to commence investigations into the scandal.

Mr Dame said the Attorney General’s office, on behalf of the OSP wrote to the British government seeking information about the identities of the Ghanaians involved in the purchase of three Airbus C-295 between 2009 and 2015.

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He mentioned that investigations had already being initiated in that regard. However, he expressed surprise that officials involved in the scandal have not come clean about the roles they played to aid the process.

Mr Dame noted that the UK judicial system were able to unravel the said scandal due to the “readiness and willingness of the company in question to admit the fact and to open up their purse to the scrutiny of investigators.”

This scenario has so far not played out in Ghana as the Deputy Attorney General expected.

Mr Dame in an interview with JoyNews asserted that: “…in this country, even the entry into deferred prosecution agreement will be quite difficult. Because of the reluctance on the part of certain persons to admit the facts. So indeed if honesty and integrity are very key, then what we have seen here so far will show that the adoption of a deferred (confirm) prosecution agreement may even be difficult”.

According to him, “the facts in the Airbus Scandal were undisputed. The key government actors who engaged in the transaction are still around. I insist that there was a Vice President who later transformed into a president and he’s around still campaigning to hold public office.

"I am saying that in accordance with the tenets of accountability that person, even if he was not involved, ought to open up to the full facts. Because the transaction definitely occurred his supervision.”