ACCRA: Two Ghanaian ministers have resigned over their alleged involvement in a multi-million-pound bribery scandal dating back to the 1990s, a government source said yesterday.

Health Minister George Sipa-Adja Yankey and Minister of State in the Presidency Seidu Amadu quit on Friday pending a government probe into allegations they took bribes from a leading British firm specialising in building steel bridges.

“Their resignation is to pave the way for the government to conduct a thorough investigation into bribery allegations against them,” junior Information Minister James Agyenim Boateng said.

Mabey & Johnson, who make steel bridges, was fined £3.5m last month for breaching UN sanctions against Iraq and bribing foreign officials, becoming the first company to be convicted in Britain for corruption overseas.

Owned by one of Britain’s richest families, it has admitted paying kickbacks in Jamaica and Ghana and breaching the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq in testimony to a London court.

The Southwark Crown Court heard evidence that the company had created a £750,000 slush fund euphemistically called the Ghana Development Fund from which bribes were paid.

The company admitted two counts of conspiracy to corrupt in Ghana and Jamaica between 1993 and 2001.

Five of Mabey & Johnson’s directors stepped down in 2008 and new management has been installed by the firm’s holding company.