Private legal practitioner Martin Luther Kpebu has criticised former Attorney-General (A-G) Godfred Yeboah Dame’s advice to EOCO on the Cecilia Dapaah matter, calling it “bad”.
Kpebu argues that the law is clear on handling cases involving unexplained wealth. He believes Dame’s advice to EOCO to cease investigations due to lack of a predicate offense was an error.
Kpebu and his team have taken the matter to court to seek clarity on whether such advice can be given to a state agency tasked with investigating corruption.
His comments support the reopening of the EOCO investigation into the Cecilia Dapaah matter. The Special Prosecutor, William Kissi Agyebeng, has indicated that the file on the former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources has been requested by and submitted to the new EOCO leadership.
“By a letter dated 14 May 2025, the new leadership of EOCO requested the OSP to forward the docket back to EOCO for a review and commencement of investigation. Under the cover of communication dated 29 May 2025, the OSP forwarded a duplicate docket of the case back to EOCO,” Mr Agyebeng told journalists on June 2.
He said, “It is our considered opinion that the docket serves as a valuable background resource for EOCO to commence its own investigation in respect of aspects of the case the OSP does not have a direct mandate. The OSP would lend its full collaborative support to EOCO in its review and investigation and probable further action.”
On Ghana Tonight on TV3 Monday, June 2, 2025, renowned lawyer Martin Kpebu welcomed the development, stating EOCO’s action signals Ghanaians will ultimately receive justice.
“It is good that Raymond Acher has asked for the file of Cecilia Dapaah. It is restoring some confidence that we are going to get justice,” he stated.
“We sued EOCO, A-G on this matter because Godfred Dame had given a legal opinion that EOCO cannot investigate Cecilia Dapaah because there is no predicate offence. That is to say that there is no proof what wrong she did before she got those colossal sums of money. There is no such law in Ghana. Our law is that, if we see you with money that is beyond your means, we can investigate you for money laundering,” he explained.
He explained that the new step taken by EOCO suggests Dame’s advice was flawed.
“It is good EOCO see that the advice Godfred Dame gave when he was in office as Attorney-General is bad advice. But we’ll also be pushing it in court so that we get a formal legal decision in court that no Attorney-General should ever give that kind of bad advice again to EOCO,” he indicated.
Background
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) commenced investigation in July 2023 in respect of suspected corruption and corruption-related offences regarding large amounts of money and other valuable items involving Cecilia Abena Dapaah, a former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, and her associates.
After nearly seven months of extensive investigation by the OSP and a parallel inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States, no direct and immediate evidence of corruption was found in respect of seized funds and frozen bank accounts linked to Ms. Dapaah and her associates – though the investigation identified strong indications of suspected money laundering and structuring, beyond the direct mandate of the OSP.
In January 2024, the OSP referred the case to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) for commencement of investigation into the identified indications of suspected money laundering and structuring – which are under the direct mandate of EOCO.
In May 2024, EOCO returned the entire docket back to the OSP on the back of their reasoning that since money laundering is not a substantive offence but a collateral offence which must be founded on a predicate offence, EOCO did not have a mandate to commence investigations into the matter since it could not premise its investigation on any predicate offence.
