Will President Mahama Stop Deceiving Ghanaians and tell us what happened to the OSP Invesitgations into the AKSA Bribery Deal?

With the investigative tools and other tradecraft available to the Government of Ghana (GoG) a completed investigation docket must have been ready by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) or other law enforcement agencies in respect of other criminal aspects of the Asante Berko-ASKA- Ghana Bribery deal before the National Democratic Congress (NDC) won the 7 December 2024 elections. Indeed, any responsible GoG committed to fighting graft must have been prosecuting the Ghanaian entities and individuals involved in the case at the same time that the United States Government (US-Gov) was prosecuting Asante Berko in a US court.

It is, therefore, insulting to the intelligence of the electorate for the Attorney-General to be informing the public for the first time since the John Mahama government’s ORAL investigations that the government through the Attorney-General is collaborating “with his United States counterparts to bring to book persons who are implicated in the bribery scheme related to the 2014-2017 power plant development contract between a Turkish energy company and the Government."

The GoG is not a junior partner or an adjunct of the United States of America Government (US-Gov) for the GoG to wait until a US Court convicts a US-Ghanaian citizen, Asante Kwaku Berko, on 6 August 2026, for bribery and corruption of GoG public officials before announcing to the Ghanaian public on 8 August 2026 what the government through the Attorney-General intends doing to bring to book the NDC’s own appointees when it was in power between 2014 and 7 January 2017 at the time the offences were committed.

On 13 April 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US-SEC) commenced civil proceedings against Asante Kwaku Berko, a US-Ghanaian citizen, as the defendant in the United States District Court Eastern District of New York for the bribery deal in Ghana between 2014 and 2017 for which Berko was later to be tried and convicted on 6 August 2026 in criminal proceedings. The OSP accessed the civil case in the media the same day, 13 April 2020.

The civil complaint filed by the US-SEC in the US Court stated, inter alia, in paragraph 3 thereof that:

“3. From approximately 2015 through at least 2016 (the “relevant period”), while employed at the Subsidiary, Berko schemed to bribe various government officials in the Republic of Ghana (“Ghana”) so that a client of the Subsidiary, a Turkish Energy Company (the “Energy Company”), would win a contract (the “Power Purchase Agreement”) to build and operate an electrical power plant in Ghana and sell the power to the Ghanaian government (the “Power Plant Project” or “Project”). To effect the corrupt scheme, Berko arranged for the Energy Company to funnel between $3 million to $4.5 million to a Ghana-based company (the “Intermediary Company”) to bribe various government officials responsible for approving the Power Plant Project. The Energy Company transferred at least $2.5 million of the planned $3 million to $4.5 million to the Intermediary Company, all, or most of which was used to bribe Ghanaian government officials.”

As of 13 April 2020, Asante Kwaku Berko was a serving public officer of the GoG working as the Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (MD of TOR) having transitioned from a facilitator of the corruption and corruption-related offences transaction for and on behalf of the John Mahama government to become an employee of the Nana Akufo-Addo government. The politically exposed person related to one of the most senior officials in government at the time and the public officers implicated in the US-SEC civil suit included not only “Government Official 1” and “Government Official 2” in the Mahama government at the time, but also Members of Parliament on both sides of the aisle, making the transaction to assume the nature of a bipartisan criminal enterprise. Asante K. Berko resigned his position in Goldman Sachs in December 2016 amid compliance inquiries regarding the Turkish power plant deal in Ghana.

Asante K. Berko was appointed the MD for TOR by the NPP government of Nana Akufo-Addo to take effect from 1 January 2020. He resigned from TOR on 15 April 2020 following the US-SEC civil suit already referred to herein without the Nana Akufo-Addo government which accepted his resignation referring him to the OSP for investigation and possible prosecution as it had done when it wanted the blood of John Mahama in the Airbus SE-Ghana bribery scandal. The modus operandi in this ASKA and the Airbus case are similar.

Nonetheless, on 16 April 2020, in my capacity as the Special Prosecutor of the OSP I emailed the Deputy Special Prosecutor and two others attaching a PDF of the suit in which I stated as follows:

“Dear all, I am sending attached herewith (i) a signed PDF scanned letter addressed to each of you and (ii) a PDF scanned copy of the civil suit filed on 13/04/20 by the US-SEC in the US District Court Eastern District of New York against Asante K. Berko for your perusal and further action as instructed. Let's each earn our membership of the Office by performing to our utmost best. Stay safe and regards. Martin”

In the attached PDF scanned copy of my letter dated 16 April 2020 without reference number because Ghana was in Covid-19 lockdown, I stated, in alia, in paragraphs 4, 5, 6, and 7 as follows:

“I have read the 37 page SEC suit carefully and my experience of several decades in public office in Ghana leaves me in no doubt that the issues involved might have spun beyond December 2016 into 2017 and could possibly be on-going because the Energy Company at the center of the corruption and corruption-related offences received benefits alleged in the suit as recently as July 2018.

Somehow, Asante K. Berko was able to worm his way to be appointed the Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) in January 2020. His letter of resignation was allegedly written on 15 April 2020 and accepted the same day.

This Office has an obligation to open investigations into the allegations of the suspected commission of corruption and corruption-related offences against Asante K. Berko and his accomplices in Ghana in accordance with its mandate. The case appears complex and the interests involved weighty and varied but it is our duty to perform our anti-corruption duty to this Republic.

The Head of Investigation should accordingly open a preliminary investigation immediately into the allegations of bribery and corruption contained in the above SEC suit against Asante K. Berko and his cohorts under the supervision of the Deputy Special Prosecutor and the Chief State Attorney.

I cannot continue to accept the situation where investigating and other officers supervising them just collect these documents and referrals and go to sleep while waiting for me to salvage the sinking image of this Office. Benefits must go with obligations!

(SPECIAL PROSECUTOR)”

The OSP started investigations into this case in April 2020 and was in collaboration with FBI office in Ghana before I resigned my office in November 2020 as the Special Prosecutor.

During the same period, the OSP was also investigating the Airbus SE Bribery scandal which had been referred to it by President Akufo-Addo and the Agyapa Royalty Transaction case.

The OSP investigation into the Asante Berko–ASKA-Ghana Bribery deal continued under the Deputy Special Prosecutor and was inherited by the current Special Prosecutor only to disappear later from the published list of cases under investigation. No professional investigator and prosecutor could have missed the identities of the persons implicated in the suspected crimes from the portion of the US-SEC civil complaint against Asante Berko dealing with “Related Entities and Individuals” and in particular from paragraphs 24 to 30 which included the politically exposed person and the GoG public officials:

24. “Intermediary Company” is a privately owned Ghanaian company that purports to provide consulting and other services for energy development projects in Ghana.
25. “Intermediary Senior Executive” is a Ghanaian citizen and a senior executive of the Intermediary Company.
26. “Intermediary Executive” is a Ghanaian citizen and an executive officer of the Intermediary Company who reported to the Intermediary Senior Executive.
27. “Intermediary Employee 1” is a Ghanaian citizen and an employee of the Intermediary Company who reported to the Intermediary Senior Executive and the Intermediary Executive.
28. “Politically Exposed Person” or “PEP” may be a controlling person of the Intermediary Company who was an immediate family member of one of the most senior officials of Ghana at the time.
29. “Government Official 1” is a high-ranking government official in Ghana who had the ability to influence the award of the Power Plant Project to the Energy Company and who, along with Government Official 2, participated in an intra-governmental agency group to assess the appropriate fee, or tariffs, to be paid to energy companies in connection with power plant projects in Ghana.
30. “Government Official 2” is a government official in Ghana who assisted Government Official 1 for the Power Plant Project.”’

With the investigative tools and other tradecraft available to the GoG, a completed investigation docket must have been ready by the OSP for prosecution or other law enforcement agencies investigating other criminal aspects of the Asante Berko-ASKA Bribery deal before the NDC won the 7 December 2024 elections. This case mysteriously disappeared from cases under investigation by the OSP and is not listed on its website today.

It is, therefore, insulting to the intelligence of the electorate for the Attorney-General to be informing the public for the first time on 8 August 2026 of what the government through the Attorney-General is doing “with his United States counterparts to bring to book persons who are implicated in the bribery scheme related to the 2014-2017 power plant development contract between a Turkish energy company and the Government." The electorate did not vote massively for the John Mahama government to be manipulated with partisan, selective, and political propaganda narratives about fighting corruption, galamsey, and other crimes as though Ghanaians are unthinking beings.

When an Attorney-General enters nolle prosequi and discontinues other pending cases in the courts of law against members of his political party and government to facilitate their appointment to lucrative public office positions in the government and turns round immediately to prosecute adversaries in the departed government and political party, his government and office forfeit the trust of an objective and impartial electorate who voted on 7 December 2024 for an impartial government and good governance under the 1992 Constitution.

When a Deputy Attorney-General is directed to personally lead the prosecution of the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, a political adversary, not for mining without a licence (galamsey) but for his company assigning its duty to extract minerals from its allotted mining concession, and then is missing in action to defend the conviction by a High Court of the government’s former Chief Executive Officer for Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedina Attionu, whose notice of appeal had intentionally been left to lie dormant since 9 May 2024 in the Court of Appeal to be revived for hearing in February 2026 leading to her acquittal on 30 July 2026, only sycophants will fail to see the partisan nature to which the professionally impartial functions of the Attorney-General have been reduced to under this government. That is not what the mass of the electorate and I canvassed and voted for President Mahama and the NDC to assume the reins of power to execute as a government for all Ghanaians.

The Asante Kwaku Berko-ASKA- Ghana Bribery deal investigation has been pending in the OSP since April 2020 without the President Mahama government insisting on a prosecution of the public officials involved upon assuming office since 7 January 2025. But upon the trial and conviction by the US Court on 6 April 2026 of Asante Berko, the chief facilitator of the bribery and corruption transaction that took place between 2014 and December 2016 under President Mahama’s previous government, the propaganda machinery of the government wants the electorate to believe that it intends to bring to book its own former appointees some of whom were reappointed after 7 January 2025 and the politically exposed family relative implicated in this second bribery deal that resembles the Airbus SE-Ghana bribery deal. That is a tale for idiots and not the wise electorate that brought the government to power.

President Mahama, unlike former President Akufo-Addo, is not a lawyer. It is, therefore, ethically disturbing to me to watch the Attorney-General sinking the Mahama government with politically partisan execution of the impartial prosecutorial function entrusted to the office under the 1992 Constitution. The Ghanaian electorate has demonstrated to every government that it cannot be taken for granted with any form of political deception no matter which political party is in government for the time being. One reaps what one sows!

Martin A. B. K. Amidu 9 August 2026