NDC bought, sold & leased jet

The Weekend Agenda urges readers to forget the hype about the 'lease' of the Presidential Jet from Gallen Limited, the offshore company in the Cayman Islands.

According to the paper, follow-up investigations and analysis of documents on the jet presented to Parliament in November 1999 by Kwame Peprah, former Minister of Finance, have shown that the Government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) actually bought the jet from Transair Trade S.A., a Swiss company based in Geneva, sold it to Gallen and then leased it back from Gallen at a premium.

The lease-back arrangement was presumably done to shore up the 'lease' story, the former government had told Ghanaians earlier, according to the paper, which concludes that the allegations of impropriety in the acquisition of the jet would therefore not be found in the agreement between the Government of Ghana (the leasee), Gallen (the leasor) and the HSBC Investment Bank PLC (which acted as the bankers) but in the earlier transactions between Transair Trade, the Government of Ghana and Gallen.