BY Grace Zigah
Former Special Prosecutor Martin A.B.K. Amidu has questioned the timing and sincerity of the government’s latest declaration that it is collaborating with United States authorities to bring to justice persons implicated in the alleged bribery scheme surrounding a Turkish energy company AKSA’s power plant project in Ghana between 2014 and 2017.
In a statement dated August 9, 2026, Amidu argued that Ghanaian law-enforcement institutions had possessed sufficient information to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute the local actors implicated in the transaction years before the current government announced its intention to act.
His central contention is that the Ghanaian investigation should not have depended on a United States court first securing a conviction against Kwaku Asante Berko, a Ghanaian-American former Goldman Sachs executive who later became Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).
The controversy dates back to April 2020, when the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commenced civil proceedings against Berko in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York over allegations surrounding the development of a power plant in Ghana.
According to the SEC complaint, Berko allegedly facilitated a scheme through which a Turkish energy company channelled between US$3 million and US$4.5 million to a Ghanaian intermediary company for the purpose of bribing Ghanaian government officials who had influence over the approval of the power project.
The SEC alleged that at least US$2.5 million of the planned payment had been transferred to the Ghanaian intermediary, with all or most of the money allegedly being used to bribe government officials.
The allegations placed the controversy squarely within Ghana’s public-sector procurement and energy-development history, raising questions about how a major power project could allegedly become entangled in a network involving political actors, public officials, private companies and intermediaries.
The US case became particularly significant because the alleged conduct did not occur solely within the United States. The alleged bribery scheme was connected to a Ghanaian government power project and allegedly involved Ghanaian public officials and politically exposed persons.
The OSP knew about the case in 2020
Amidu’s latest intervention is based largely on his assertion that Ghana’s Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) did not need to wait for the United States legal process before commencing its own investigation.
He recalled that on April 13, 2020, the same day the SEC civil complaint became public, the OSP accessed the case and began examining the allegations.
At the time, Berko was serving as Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery, having been appointed by the Akufo-Addo administration with effect from January 1, 2020.
His appointment became controversial after the SEC proceedings became public. Berko resigned from TOR on April 15, 2020, shortly after the SEC action was filed.
Amidu, who was then Special Prosecutor, said he immediately directed officials within the OSP to begin a preliminary investigation into the allegations.
In a letter dated April 16, 2020, he said he instructed the OSP’s investigative leadership to examine the allegations against Berko and other persons who may have been involved.
According to Amidu, he had personally reviewed the 37-page SEC complaint and concluded that the allegations potentially extended beyond the period in which the power project was initially negotiated.
He argued that the OSP had a constitutional and statutory responsibility to investigate suspected corruption offences in Ghana regardless of the political affiliations of the individuals involved.
The former Special Prosecutor further disclosed that the OSP’s investigation was conducted in collaboration with the FBI office in Ghana during his tenure and continued after his resignation in November 2020.
He said the matter was subsequently inherited by the Deputy Special Prosecutor and later by the current Special Prosecutor.
Yet, according to Amidu, the case eventually disappeared from the OSP’s publicly listed cases under investigation.
That development, he argues, raises one of the most important questions surrounding the scandal: what happened to the Ghanaian investigation after it was formally opened in 2020?
Who were the Ghanaian actors identified in the US complaint?
Amidu maintains that the identities and descriptions contained in the SEC complaint provided Ghanaian investigators with sufficient leads to pursue the local side of the alleged bribery operation.
The SEC complaint referred to an “Intermediary Company”, described as a privately owned Ghanaian company providing consulting and related services for energy development projects.
It also identified an “Intermediary Senior Executive”, an “Intermediary Executive” and an “Intermediary Employee”, all described as Ghanaian citizens connected to the company.
More significantly, the complaint referred to a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) who may have been a controlling person of the intermediary company and an immediate family member of one of Ghana’s most senior officials at the time.
The US complaint also referred to “Government Official 1” and “Government Official 2”.
Government Official 1 was described as a high-ranking Ghanaian official capable of influencing the award of the power plant project and who, together with Government Official 2, participated in an inter-governmental group assessing fees or tariffs payable to energy companies involved in power projects.
Government Official 2 was described as another Ghanaian government official who assisted Government Official 1 in relation to the project.
The identities of those individuals were not publicly disclosed in the SEC complaint, but Amidu argues that Ghanaian investigators with access to domestic records, official correspondence and government structures should have been capable of identifying them.
For him, the issue is therefore not whether Ghana had information in 2025 or 2026. The issue is why information available as far back as 2020 did not result in a completed prosecution docket.
From Goldman Sachs to TOR
The Berko controversy also attracted attention because of his professional trajectory. Before joining the Ghanaian public sector, Berko was associated with Goldman Sachs. He resigned from the investment bank in December 2016 amid compliance inquiries relating to the Turkish power plant transaction in Ghana.
Years later, the Akufo-Addo administration appointed him Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery. His appointment meant that a man who had been connected to a transaction subsequently scrutinised by American authorities had moved into a senior position within a major Ghanaian state institution.
When the SEC case emerged in April 2020, Berko resigned from TOR.
Amidu argues that the Akufo-Addo administration should have immediately ensured that the allegations were referred to the OSP for investigation and possible prosecution, particularly given the government’s willingness at the time to pursue corruption-related cases involving political opponents.
He draws a comparison between the AKSA controversy and the Airbus SE-Ghana bribery scandal, which was also referred to the OSP by the Akufo-Addo administration.
Why the timing of the government’s announcement matters
The controversy has now returned to the political centre stage following the government’s announcement that the Attorney-General is collaborating with US authorities to pursue individuals allegedly implicated in the AKSA-related bribery scheme.
The announcement came shortly after Berko’s conviction in the United States on corruption-related charges.
Amidu considers the timing deeply problematic.
His argument is that Ghana should not have needed a US court to establish criminal liability against Berko before acting on the Ghanaian dimension of the case.
He maintains that the OSP had already begun its own investigation more than six years earlier and that the information contained in the SEC complaint provided investigators with substantial leads.
Consequently, he questions why the government is only now presenting the matter as a fresh anti-corruption initiative.
For Amidu, the development risks creating the impression that the Mahama administration is responding to political pressure rather than following through on an investigation that had been pending for years.
