Martin Amidu questions Mahama over Asante Berko bribery investigation

Former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu has questioned what happened to an investigation into a bribery case involving former Goldman Sachs banker Asante Kwaku Berko and a Turkish power company.

Mr Amidu says the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) began investigating the case in April 2020, after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought civil proceedings against Mr Berko.

He is now demanding that President John Mahama's government explain why the investigation no longer appears on the OSP's published list of cases.

Mr Berko, a US-Ghanaian citizen, was convicted by a US court on August 6 2026 in a criminal bribery case linked to a power plant project in Ghana.

The case dates back to 2014-17, when a Turkish energy company was seeking a contract to build and operate a power plant and sell electricity to the Ghanaian government.

The US SEC alleged that Mr Berko helped arrange the payment of between $3m and $4.5m to a Ghanaian intermediary company, with at least $2.5m transferred to the company.

The SEC alleged that all, or most, of the money was used to bribe Ghanaian government officials involved in approving the power project.

Mr Amidu, who was Special Prosecutor at the time, says he instructed the OSP's investigators to begin a preliminary investigation immediately after the SEC case became public.

He says the OSP subsequently worked with the FBI office in Ghana on the case before he resigned in November 2020.

According to Mr Amidu, the investigation continued and was later inherited by the current Special Prosecutor.

But he says the case subsequently disappeared from the OSP's published list of investigations.

Questions over Ghana's response

Mr Amidu argues that Ghanaian authorities should have been investigating possible offences involving Ghanaian individuals and companies while the US authorities were pursuing Mr Berko.

He has criticised the government's announcement that the Attorney-General is now working with US authorities to identify and prosecute people implicated in the bribery scheme.

The former Special Prosecutor says it is "insulting to the intelligence" of Ghanaians to suggest that the government only became interested in the Ghanaian aspects of the case after Mr Berko's US conviction.

He has challenged President Mahama to explain what happened to the OSP investigation and why no prosecutions of those allegedly involved in Ghana have followed.

Mr Amidu also accuses the government of applying its anti-corruption powers selectively against political opponents while discontinuing or abandoning cases involving members of the governing National Democratic Congress.

He cites the prosecution of New Patriotic Party politician Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, and the recent acquittal of former MASLOC chief executive Sedina Christine Tamakloe Attionu as examples.

Those claims are part of Mr Amidu's political criticism of the government and have not been independently established.

What the US case alleged

The SEC's civil complaint identified several unnamed Ghanaian individuals and entities allegedly connected to the scheme, including a politically exposed person and two government officials.

It described an intermediary company in Ghana which allegedly received money from the Turkish energy company.

Mr Amidu says the SEC documents provided sufficient information for Ghanaian investigators to identify those involved and pursue possible criminal offences in Ghana.

He also points out that Mr Berko had been appointed managing director of the Tema Oil Refinery by the Akufo-Addo government in January 2020, before resigning in April that year following the SEC action.

Mr Amidu says his office opened its investigation after Mr Berko's resignation.

The former Special Prosecutor has now called on President Mahama to account for the status of that investigation and explain whether the government intends to prosecute Ghanaian individuals allegedly involved in the bribery scheme.

The allegations concerning Ghanaian officials and other individuals have not been tested in a Ghanaian court.