Former President John Dramani Mahama has broken his silence on the Airbus scandal by dismissing allegations of wrongdoing in the purchase of the two aircrafts for the Ghana Armed Forces.
He has also denied benefiting from the deal financially.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, Mr Mahama declared: “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.”
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“I am happy that the said aircrafts have become the backbone of the Ghana Air Force and its operations.
“They are used for troop transportation, logistics deployment and medical evacuation,” he stated.
He said he felt fulfilled that as Vice-President and later as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, his “overarching desire to ensure that our men and women in uniform were provided with the tools and equipment they needed to fulfill their constitutional mandate of ensuring public safety, security and protecting the territorial integrity of our nation were reasonably met.
“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.”