The embattled Managing Director of Ghana’s only refinery, Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Mr. Asante K. Berko has resigned.
Mr. Asante Berko tendered in his resignation to the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, on Wednesday, April 15.
A statement from the presidency announcing the president’s acceptance of the resignation of Mr. Berko read:
“The president of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has on Wednesday 15th April, 2020, received the resignation from office of Mr. Asante Berko as Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR). This was after he submitted his resignation letter dated, 15th April, 2020 to the president.”
“President Akufo-Addo has accepted Mr. Asante Berko’s resignation, and duly notified the Board of Directors of TOR of this development. The President wished him well in his future endeavours,” the statement concluded.
Mr Kweku Asante Berko has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), of the United States of America for breaching the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FCPA.
Asante Berko, until his appointment as the Managing Director of TOR, was a banker at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
According to reports from the US Regulators and information from a civil suit, he made arrangements for sums of money, amounting in millions of dollars as bribes to be paid to some Ghanaian government officials to help a client win a power-plant contract in Ghana.
The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Asante Berko, a former executive at Goldman’s London subsidiary, facilitated as much as $4.5 million in bribes to help a Turkish energy company win a contract to build a power plant. The SEC says the energy company, which wasn’t named, funneled money to an intermediary, which then paid bribes to Ghanaian government officials.
Mr. Berko also personally paid bribes totalling $66,000 to members of the Ghanaian parliament and other government officials, the SEC alleges. The said bribery transaction occurred within a period from 2015 to sometime in 2016.
An attorney for Mr. Asante Berko declined to comment on the lawsuit, which accuses Mr. Berko of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That law bars individuals and companies from giving anything of value to overseas officials to win business.
The SEC said in a press release that Mr. Berko tried to hide the scheme from the bank, whose compliance officers questioned how the deal was put together. Goldman, which wasn’t named in the SEC’s lawsuit, terminated its involvement with the project after the energy company refused to explain the intermediary firm’s role, the SEC’s legal complaint says.
