Airbus saga is about payment of commission not bribe – Inusah Fuseini explains

Ghanaian Lawyer and Politician Inusah Abdulai B. Fuseini who is the Member of Parliament for Tamale Central and a former Minister for Lands and Natural Resources in the John Mahama government has said the controversial Airbus saga is not about bribery but rather commission payment.

Appearing on Point of View on Citi TV monitored by MyNewsGH.com, the MP who is also a lawyer said the OECD rules of 1997 frowns upon unfair business practices amongst member states allowing them to pay commissions up to 3million Euros.

He explained that some companies pay more than the agreed commission which is against the OECD rules of fair competition.

He gave some caveats where he believes impropriety comes to play

“Likelihood of impropriety where there is a close relationship between a business agent and business country. For example, Boeing and airbus are into the same business and hence Airbus using a close relation of a decision-maker in Ghana as an agent to do business in Ghana is an unfair business practice that affects Boeing” and also “That you can not pay success based commission in excess of €3.001million to an agent. If airbus, therefore, pays in excess of this amount then it can be said to be engaged in a breach of the rules. How is that Ghana’s wahala if Airbus overpays its commission?

He explained further:

On point one, the senior team of airbus raised that concern in the transaction with Ghana resulting in the eventual use of the Spain company as agent. The red flag raised and the commentary in the judgment had nothing to do with the actual occurrence of corruption in the case of Ghana but an infringement of the OECD rules hence the introduction of the Spain company to cure it.

On point 2 above, it is clear that payments of commission by airbus to its agents is grounded in the OECD rules and hence all the agents in Ghana were entitled to these commissions provided it was not in excess of €3.001million.

It is also instructive to note that the judgment was emphatic that we had not been shortchanged and that pricing hadn’t been inflated.