Customers of the defunct Gold Coast Fund Management Companypicketed at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today, Wednesday, May 5, 2023 in order to seek the release of their frozen funds.
The collapsed financial institution under the name BlackShield Capital Limitedhad about 55,000 customers whose funds were locked up shortly before the regulator revoked its license.
Addressing the media on the Day 2 of the picketing, the convener of the aggrieved customers, Charles Nyame alleged that the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, and Rev. Ogbamey Tetteh of the Securities and Exchange Commission have deliberately withheld the funds reported to have been released by the government.
“Yesterday, we were here, and we were expecting to hear something good from the government after yesterday’s picketing but up till now, we haven’t received any official information or message from the government; either the Ministry of Finance or the Securities and Exchange Commission. But there is a new development where after the picketing we had a call from a key official trying to console us and told us that the monies have been released just as the president had advised and that the money is with Ofori-Atta and Rev. Ogbamey Tetteh.”
The aggrieved customers also called on the International Monetary Fund to investigate the delays in paying the monies owed them because the government in its official documents to the Fund told it that it had used over GH¢25 billion to settle the debts of customers of collapsed fund management companies.
A former Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Asante Berko, has been arrested in the United Kingdom over alleged bribery.
Recall that in 2020, he was sued over the same conduct by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the U.S.
According to Bloomberg reports, Mr Berko, who is also a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was arrested on charges that he orchestrated bribes to Ghanaian officials while employed at the investment bank.
He was arrested at Heathrow Airport, reports further indicate, and he is facing six counts on an issue dated August 2020.
Details of the alleged bribery a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, accuses Berko of conspiring with at least two Ghanaian officials and four others in a bribery scheme that benefited Goldman, himself, and a Turkish energy company that sought to build a power plant in the African nation.
However, the identities of the two other persons involved are yet to be revealed. Meanwhile, the lawyer for Mr Berko, Carl Loewenson, and
the spokesperson for Brooklyn US Attorney Breon Peace, John Marzulli, have declined to comment.
The indictment claims that Berko was a member of the Goldman team in charge of arranging and overseeing financing for the power
plant project at the time of the conspiracy.
He allegedly paid the bribes to obtain the necessary approvals for the Turkish company, in which Goldman held a 16% stake. Prosecutors also claim Berko laundered the bribe money through US financial institutions.
Berko allegedly helped a client secure a government contract to build and operate an electrical power plant in the Republic of Ghana, in contravention of the US Foreign Corrupt Practises Act of 1977.
As alleged in the complaint that the SEC made on April 13, 2020, Asante Berko, who according to the Wall Street Journal was an executive of a foreign-based subsidiary of Goldman’s until 2016, arranged for his firm’s client, a Turkish energy company, to funnel at least US$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 that he personally paid more than $60,000 to members of the Ghanaian parliament and other government officials.
According to the complaint, Berko took deliberate steps to prevent his employer from detecting the bribery. He misled his employer’s compliance personnel about the true purpose of the intermediary company.
Berko consented to the entry of a final judgement that permanently enjoins him from breaking the FCPA and Section 30A Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and orders him to disgorge $275,000 in ill- gotten gains, plus $54,163.92 in prejudgment interest.
This matter was resolved by (Mr Berko) agreeing to pay more than $329,000 to regulators without admitting or denying the allegations, court records show.
According to the SEC, Berko was a vice president in Goldman’s natural-resources group before he resigned in December 2016. After his resignation in 2016, he proceeded to head Ghana’s state- owned Tema Oil Refinery Ltd. but stepped down after the SEC suit was filed.
In another foreign-bribery case, Goldman paid more than $2.3 billion for its role in the looting of Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund. It was the largest penalty in US history for a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
