The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has submitted a new application to the High Court in Accra, seeking to freeze certain bank accounts and confirm the seizure of funds previously taken from the residence of former sanitation minister, Cecilia Dapaah. Local media outlets have reported on an 8-page court document that outlines various discoveries made by the OSP regarding the seized funds, totaling approximately US$590,000 and over GH¢2.8 million in cash.
In the document, the OSP shed light on several businesses that the former minister purportedly had connections to. It alleged that she used these businesses as part of her defense in explaining the source of some of the money found in her home. The document stated, “The OSP’s criminal intelligence further suggested that the first respondent, as a Minister of State, was engaged in an undisclosed and undeclared real estate business in which she obscured and concealed the transactions by employing the use of aliases to avoid detection of the actual ownership of the business and properties, while cleverly receiving the proceeds of the transactions in her bank accounts and investments.”
Additionally, the document revealed that “criminal intelligence suggested that the first respondent had unexplained large sums of money (far exceeding her income as a Minister of State) hidden in her residence, and that her house-helps allegedly appropriated some of these funds through theft.” The OSP also linked these findings to the initial case involving the theft of a million dollars, euros, and Ghana cedis by her two househelps, emphasizing the absence of evidence regarding the source of the stolen funds.
The document noted, “There are no financial records and traces of the origin(s) of the money reportedly stolen from the residence of the respondents and the money discovered by the OSP at said residence. Furthermore, there is no evidence that these amounts of money were derived from legitimate businesses, professions, or vocations, and no evidence that they were lawfully declared or subjected to statutory payments. During the search conducted in her presence, the first respondent disavowed any knowledge of the presence of the cash sums in the residence. This conduct, given her status as a public officer, raised suspicions among OSP authorized officers that the cash sums may be tainted property.”
It’s worth noting that the OSP had previously unfrozen the former minister’s accounts and returned her properties as per the court’s instructions on August 21. However, the office subsequently re-froze these assets before submitting the current application. A hearing for this matter has been scheduled for October 18, 2023.
Leave feedback about this