Former Power Minister Kwabena Donkor has denied any link to the bribery scheme that led to the US conviction of ex-Goldman Sachs banker Asante Berko last week.
Court documents from Berko’s Brooklyn trial show that in April 2015, Berko and his co-conspirators discussed paying $1 million to the then Minister of Power, who held approval authority over a Turkish-backed power plant project, along with $250,000 for a senior adviser. Donkor held that portfolio at the time. Prosecutors’ language describes a discussion of payment, not confirmation that money changed hands, a distinction legal practitioner and activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor said should not be lost in the fallout from Berko’s conviction.
In a Facebook post, Donkor said there was no bidding process in which a minister or official needed to be bribed to secure the contract, and that he never dealt with Berko directly, describing him as neither the known local agent nor partner for the Turkish company, Aksa Enerji, in Ghana. Barker-Vormawor said Donkor gave him a similar account in a separate conversation, saying he had never interacted with Berko and had received nothing from him. “He said he welcomed the news of an impending investigation and believes it will clear him,” Barker-Vormawor said, adding that Donkor’s lawyers had advised him to hold off on a fuller public statement for now.
The distinction Barker-Vormawor drew mattered elsewhere in the case too. US prosecutors said bribes were paid, not merely discussed, to five other Ghanaian officials during an all-expenses-paid trip to Turkey to inspect power plant equipment, and that $46,000 went to unnamed members of Parliament who ratified the deal in July 2015.
Ghana’s Attorney-General has said the government will work with US authorities to examine the domestic side of the case, and the Office of the Special Prosecutor said this week it supplied evidence to the FBI through the country’s mutual legal assistance framework, assistance the US Department of Justice credited as significant to the prosecution. Berko was convicted on all counts, including conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and faces up to 30 years in prison at sentencing on November 10.
Barker-Vormawor said he had initially suspected Donkor because of his proximity to the ministry at the time, but that he had regarded him as an example of ethical leadership and wanted an investigation to establish the facts either way. “Still I believe in ORAL,” he said, referring to the government’s Operation Recover All Loot initiative.
No Ghanaian official has been charged in connection with the case, and the scope of any domestic investigation remains unclear.
