A US-based Ghanaian lawyer, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has questioned the kind of due diligence the Akufo-Addo administration conducted before appointing Asante K. Berko as the Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery.
In a Facebook post, the Ghanaian lawyer said: “Unlike the poor guy who got remanded for stealing cocoyams, you will not see Asante Berko, current TOR MD, remanded for his role in facilitating $4.5M bribe payments to government officials, including a misery $66,000 to our MPs while he, Berko, pocketed a cool $2M for his role in the illegal scheme.
“What due diligence was made before his appointment?
“128/1820 is a bona fide scam and sham! Da Yie!” he concluded.
Mr Berko has allegedly been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States of America for arranging, at least, $2.5 million in bribes paid to former government officials in Ghana, West Africa, to gain approval for a power plant project.
The bribes were allegedly arranged by Mr Berko when he was an Executive Director with the US bank, Goldman Sachs.
The US Security and Exchanges Commission, in a statement, said it had “charged a former executive of a financial services company with orchestrating a bribery scheme to help a client to win a government contract to build and operate an electrical power plant in Ghana in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).”
The SEC’s complaint alleges that Mr Berko, a former executive of a foreign-based subsidiary of a U.S. bank holding company, arranged for his firm’s client, a Turkish energy company, to funnel, at least, $2.5 million to a Ghana-based intermediary to pay illicit bribes to Ghanaian government officials in order to gain their approval of an electrical power plant project.
The complaint further alleges that Berko helped the intermediary pay more than $200,000 in bribes to various other government officials, and Berko personally paid $66,000 to members of the Ghanaian parliament and other government officials.
According to the complaint, Berko took deliberate measures to prevent his employer, Goldman Sachs, from detecting his bribery scheme, including misleading his employer’s compliance personnel about the true role and purpose of the intermediary company.
Mr Berko was appointed as the Managing Director of TOR in January 2020, after the resignation of Isaac Osei.
Source:www. energynewsafrica.com