Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare alias Kwaku Azar has stated that the gravity of the criminality in both the Airbus scandal and the missing excavators scandal cannot be ignored or trivialized, insisting that the conduct of persons involved in both raging scandals is not just criminal but demonstrate an abuse of office at elevated levels.

“We cannot ignore or devalue the gravity of the criminality that has now become known as Airbus.

Nor, frankly, can we trivialize or dance around the severity of the criminality that has now come to be known as Excavators.

Airbus and Excavators are not just gravely criminal but they also represent a heightened abuse of office that strikes at the very core of our government and democracy,” he argued in a post sighted by MyNewsGh.com

The public intellectual is therefore calling for thorough investigations and prompt prosecutions of all who may be implicated so that they can pay for their crimes and the embarrassment they have caused the people of Ghana.

“Nothing short of airing and excavating all the facts followed by prompt prosecutions of all those involved will atone for the sin that these scandals have visited upon the people,” he recommended

In a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) between the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and European plane maker, Airbus, it was revealed that Airbus engaged in the use of intermediaries to essentially induced the government of Ghana to do deals with it. It points out that monies were paid to intermediaries to influence an elected government official codenamed Government Official 1.

The missing excavator scandal involves the loss of some 500 excavators seized from illegal miners. The excavators are alleged to have been sold back to some of the illegal miners or some influential New Patriotic Party members for use, ironically, in illegal mining. While others have been sold to other individuals for their own use for other purposes.