It appears the incidence of a manufacturing firm bribing Ghanaian officials to expedite the procuring of contracts in the country is not as new as the nation has been made to believe.

In a report published on June 17, 2010, in the Public Agenda Newspaper and subsequently aggregated by www.ghanaweb.com, German luxury carmaker Daimler AG, noted for the production of Benz were implicated in a bribery scandal involving many countries, Ghana included.

According to the report, Ghana's military establishment was named in a longstanding U.S. probe into allegations of bribery and other corrupt practices by the car manufacturing firm in several countries around the world.

The bribes, in cash and kind, were part of the German automobile manufacturer's bid to secure lucrative contracts in these countries.

The countries alleged to have been involved in the corrupt dealings included China, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Latvia, and Nigeria

The rest of the countries were Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Liberia and Ghana.

“In a plea bargaining deal sealed by a U.S. Circuit Court Judge in Washington on March 24, Daimler confessed to paying bribes and kickbacks amounting to several millions of U.S. dollars to public officials and their agents in about 22 countries between 1998 and 2008 to further its business interest in these countries,” part of the report read.

This report puts into disrepute submissions about the governing NPP about corrupt dealings of this magnitude happening only under the jurisdiction of the Mahama-led administration since per Daimler’s confessions, their activities spanned from 1998 to 2008.

Former President Rawlings handed over power to John Agyekum Kufuor in 2001, making both leaders and officials in their regime complicit of the Daimler scandal.

The report further cited that “…in the specific case of Ghana, Daimler, and Silver Star Auto are said to have entered into a contract to sell eight trucks to the Ghana Armed Forces in September 1997.

The deal was negotiated through an agent, Global Strategic Ventures Ltd. It was understood that Silver Star Auto would pay Global Strategic Ventures a commission that would be passed on, in whole or in part, to Ghanaian Army officials in exchange for the aforementioned contract.

Silver Star Auto paid Global Strategic Ventures a commission of $170,000, which was wired from a Daimler account in Germany to Global Strategic Ventures' account in London and debited to Silver Star Auto's TPA account.



Read the full story as it was published Read the full story originally published on June 17, 2010, on Ghanaweb