Let’s probe further into Cecilia Dapaah case — CDD
The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) Ghana has expressed dismay over the status of the investigation on the stolen monies at the house of the former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources.
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In a statement dated May 3, 2024, the civil society organisation said it was hard to believe that after over eight months of investigations into the matter, “Ghanaians cannot get a simple satisfactory answer from any public agency regarding the source of these monies.
“The fact that these monies, at least in the aggregate, apparently exceed the former Minister’s known or verifiable income should raise legitimate questions or reasonable suspicion or doubt regarding their source,” It said.
CDD has, therefore, underscored the need to continue to probe the matter to establish the source of the monies. Last year, Ms Dapaah had $1 million, €300,000, a large sum of Ghana cedis and other valuable items allegedly stolen from her house by her house helps.
While her house helps were arrested and put before a court, the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) commenced investigations over “Suspected corruption and corruption-related offences regarding large amounts of money and other valuable items reportedly stolen from her residence”.
However, the OSP in January this year, dropped the cases of suspected corruption against the former minister. According to the OSP, investigations proved that the actions of the former minister related more to money laundering, which was within the purview of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), and not within the mandate of the OSP.
EOCO subsequently wrote to the Attorney-General for directions on the matter. In his response, the A-G advised against initiating money-laundering investigations into the former minister’s case stating that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) did not furnish EOCO with the report on their investigations which suggested that the former minister was involved in money laundering.
Reaction
The CDD-Ghana said the idea that “Unexplained wealth” can give rise to a reasonable suspicion or even a presumption of illegality of the source of such wealth was a principle embraced by the Constitution; hence, the matter needed to be investigated.
“The action of EOCO in requesting directions from the AG without first acting on the referral from the OSP to initiate its investigation of the matter seems oddly contrived”.
The statement added that the abrupt or inconclusive manner in which the matter had been ended fits a pattern in terms of the Nana Akufo-Addo Administration’s general attitude and response to scandals and allegations or reported incidents of criminal conduct, corruption or other financial malfeasance involving persons closely associated with the government or the ruling party.
Scandalous
It cited cases and scandals such as galamsey and a host of pseudo-PPP/procurement deals, including the recent SML matter as some of the cases that had been treated similarly.
“The government has not demonstrated a good faith commitment to working with the responsible agencies to bring these cases or scandals to a credible and satisfactory resolution.
“It appears that the government is more interested in exonerating the targets or suspects in these cases than in working with the state’s investigative and prosecutorial agencies to resolve these matters in the public interest,” the statement said.
It said despite pioneering the establishment of the OSP and financing resources to enable the OSP and related agencies to function, turning around to frustrate or obstruct their efforts to investigate politically sensitive and other high-profile cases was worrying.
“Given Ghana’s continuing dismal performance in fighting corruption and associated alarming deterioration of the quality of governance, this persistent inconclusive handling and shutting down of high-profile scandals only further undermine the already low public trust in our state institutions,” the statement said.