A fresh foreign bribery scandal has rocked the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) following the Airbus $3.9 billion bribery saga involving the aircraft manufacturer and several countries, including Ghana, during the first administration of President John Dramani Mahama.
The latest scandal emerged after a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker, Kwaku Asante Berko, was convicted, among others, for paying bribes to NDC government officials to secure power deals in Ghana, curiously also during the first term of President Mahama between 2014 and 2015.
The case centred on revelations that Mr Berko and others conspired to pay over US$4 million in bribes to government officials, including $1 million paid to the country’s Power Minister at the time, to help secure a multimillion-dollar power plant deal for Turkish energy company Aksa Enerji Uretim A.S.
The US prosecution accused him of using the American financial system to facilitate the movement of illicit payments connected to the deal.
The SEC claimed that Berko facilitated up to $4.5 million in bribe payments on behalf of a Turkish energy company seeking to win the contract.
According to the complaint, the unnamed company channelled funds through an intermediary, who then distributed the bribes to Ghanaian public officials.
The SEC also disclosed that Berko personally paid $66,000 in bribes to members of Ghana’s Parliament and other government officials between 2015 and 2026 to advance the deal.
Mr Berko, 52 and dual US-Ghanaian citizen was convicted in Brooklyn on August 6, 2026, on all counts in the indictment, following a nine-day trial before US District Judge Diane Gujarati at the Eastern District of New York.
He was convicted on charges of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), violating the FCPA and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Mr Berko has since been remanded in custody pending sentencing, which is scheduled for November 10 with a maximum sentence up to 30 years in prison.
The power deal in question was for the construction and financing of power plants by Aksa Enerji between December 2014 and July 2015, during the prolonged power outages in the country, now popularly known as ‘Dumsor’..
Mr Berko, who was an executive director in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs at the time, was involved in managing the transaction between the bank’s client, Aksa Enerji, and the Republic of Ghana.
He was extradited to the United States in July 2024 after living in the United Kingdom and being arrested in November 2022 following an Interpol Red Notice.
The conviction brings to an end a case that has been before US authorities for years and could result in a significant prison term for the former Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) boss.
Expensive ‘pay or take’ power contracts
The stakeholders in the power sector had argued that these alleged bribery schemes had been responsible for expensive binding energy contracts signed by the erstwhile Mahama administration.
Event a former World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Pierre Frank Laporte observed that the Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs) the Government signed were expensive.
In addition to the exorbitant power purchases the country was paying for energy, it did not use due to the “take or pay contracts.”
“In the case of Ghana, those contracts that have been signed as PPAs are just expensive and the kind of PPAs signed are take or pay. You pay although you do not use it. The fact is that in the past few years, Ghana entered into an agreement at the wrong rate and the wrong price, and it has impacted the debt situation,” Laporte concluded.
Fishing out government officials
The Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, is reported to be working with his United States counterparts to bring to book persons implicated in a bribery scheme linked to the financing of the major power plant in Ghana.
The Deputy Attorney-General, Justice Srem Sai, disclosed this in a Facebook post on Saturday, August 8, following the conviction Mr Berko.
Airbus scandal relived
It would be recalled that Airbus, the largest European aircraft manufacturer, was reported to have paid bribes in Ghana when it sold three military aircraft to the country under President Mahama.
The said allegation, which led to President Akufo-Addo referring the matter to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) for investigations in February 2020, was as a result of a series of investigations and prosecutions of Airbus by the US, the UK and France authorities.
According to USA and UK court documents, Airbus had been under investigation by the US Department of Justice, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) of the UK and the Parquet National Financier (PNF) of France.
This came to light after nearly four years of investigations by authorities in the USA, the UK and France into the business operations of Airbus, which culminated in the company being fined $3.9 billion for its corrupt practices in Ghana, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Taiwan within the same period.
The $3.9-billion fine imposed on Airbus was one of the biggest in the world against a corporate body.
The US, the UK and France authorities imposed the fine in a deferred prosecution agreement which was essentially a corporate plea bargain that helped the company to avoid criminal prosecution.
Airbus was found guilty of failing to prevent its employees and others associated with the company from bribing officials during deals for the purchase of its aircraft and other products, and also, for breaking US export regulations with regard to its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
Court documents published by the US Department of Justice of the US and the SFO of the UK revealed how Airbus employed different tactics to allegedly bribe officials in many countries, including Ghana, in order to secure lucrative contracts.
In the case of Ghana, Airbus allegedly paid more than €3 million through a third party.
According to the facts, a high-ranking elected official, which the document mentioned as “Government Official 1,” who was said to be in office from 2009 to 2016, made direct contact with the Airbus management about the purchase of the aircraft a few months after he took office.
“Airbus purposefully sought to engage Consultant 4 due to his closeness to Government Official 1,” the facts added.
It was later confirmed that ‘Government Official 1’ was President Mahama and ‘Consultant 4’ was the president’s biological brother, Adam Foster Mahama.
Special Prosecutor’s verdict
Mr Martin Amidu, the first Special Prosecutor to receive the referral, identified ‘Government Official 1” as President Mahama and “Consultant 4” as Adam Foster Mahama.
He later resigned and the current Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng in a lengthy statement cleared President Mahama after a reported investigation even though the international community concluded that bribes were paid to the “Ranking Ghanaian Official” and others in Ghana.
