Ghana’s political and legal community is split over how to respond to the AKSA Energy bribery scandal, with commentators pressing President John Dramani Mahama for swift criminal action even as others warn that the preferred investigative route could undermine any eventual prosecution.
Policy analyst Justice Abdulai has urged Mahama to ensure swift criminal investigations into the scandal, arguing that because the underlying transaction originated during his first term in office, the President carries a direct responsibility to see it fully addressed. Abdulai separately argued that the affair exposes deeper weaknesses in Ghana’s parliamentary oversight system, saying the process that allowed the 2015 AKSA Emergency Power Agreement to pass through Parliament failed to catch the alleged corruption now surfacing in a US courtroom.
That courtroom is central to the controversy. A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted former Goldman Sachs banker and ex-Tema Oil Refinery Managing Director Asante Kwaku Berko on 6 August of conspiring to pay more than $1 million in bribes to Ghanaian officials to secure the AKSA power plant deal, which Parliament ratified during the Third Session of the Sixth Parliament. The conviction has prompted the pressure group PAGA to demand a parliamentary probe into the 18 MPs who sat on the Mines and Energy Committee at the time, and separately prompted allegations, raised in US court filings, involving a relative of President Mahama’s, that opposition lawmakers say should be investigated.
Lawyer Martin Kpebu has pushed back against calls for a commission of inquiry specifically, warning that testimony given by witnesses before such a commission cannot automatically be used against them in later criminal proceedings, which would force prosecutors to build their case independently regardless of what a commission uncovers. He has separately questioned what Ghana’s own Special Prosecutor has done about what he calls “the Ghanaian component” of the case, arguing that US assistance to the prosecution does not explain what domestic action, if any, has been taken against Ghanaian individuals or institutions implicated in the alleged wrongdoing.
Amadu Bukari Sorogho has defended Parliament’s original handling of the deal, saying MPs relied on technical expert advice when they approved the contract in 2015, and that once government submitted its report, the Speaker referred the matter to the appropriate committee for the standard process of consideration.
The dispute over method sits alongside broader demands for accountability: the opposition NPP has called for a full public inquiry into the deal, and Deputy Attorney-General Justice Srem Sai has said Ghana’s Attorney-General is coordinating with US authorities to pursue any Ghanaian officials implicated in the scheme.
