Private legal practitioner, Martin Luther Kpebu, has challenged the Attorney-General and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to include him and a few others, to analyse Cecilia Dapaah’s file to unearth what he considers the rot the government is trying to conceal.
According to him, just as the EOCO failed to conduct proper probe into some financial crimes involving government officials, he says EOCO wants to do same to Madam Dapaah’s story.
Cecilia Abena Dapaah, a former Sanitation and Water Resources Minister, reported her housemaids for making away with some huge sums of monies that were being kept at her Abelenkpe residence.
The value of the sums mentioned, in different currencies, ranking from millions of dollars, cedis and thousands of Euros, caused public apprehension and involvement of the Office of the Special Prosecutor to investigate the source of the monies.
Preliminary investigation led to a search in the woman’s house where according to the OSP, it discovered more amounts of money in her home.
The Special Prosecutor, after suspecting acts of money laundering since the source of the money according to the Minister who resigned following the scandal, was inconsistent. The money laundering aspect led to the transfer of the investigations to EOCO since it is the constitutionally mandated institution to embark on that.
However, the Attorney-General has advised the EOCO against investigating the matter after it sought advice from the government’s lawyer on carrying out with the proceedings. The development, is what Martin Kpebu says smacks of a conspiracy to let the woman go.
Speaking on Ghana Tonight on TV3 Monday, May 06, 2024, Mr. Kpebu said the EOCO boss, Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo Danquah is becoming notorious for dereliction of duty to allow government officials involved in corruption go unpunished.
He wants to be involved in analysing the files to help come out with facts which the A-G and EOCO are trying to cover.
“It begins to feed into the grand conspiracy or evidence that this is a ploy to free Madam Cecilia Dapaah. I have listed four previous cases in which EOCO Boss didn’t do what is professionally required in order to let people who are close to this government go scot-free – the Abu Jinapor and Assenso Boakye’s case, the Serwaah Broni case, the Takoradi Girls’ case, then Amoako Attah Vrs Stephen Adei’s case.
“So what is new? On Saturday Attorney-General Godfred Dame came out to say that the EOCO boss Tiwaah Addo Danquah has finished her investigations and she found nothing. Further, the source of that money had already been stated in the charge sheet [of the housemaid’s trial on the stolen cash], the sources of the money had always been in the public domain, that the money was from funeral donations and also for the brother, so the A-G says that is the source of the money. So if the A-G says so, then why does the letter that the A-G wrote to EOCO Boss say that she can commence investigations but it is not necessary?
“That is a contradiction so it has been unraveled that there is a grand scheme to just free Madam Dapaah. Like I said there is a lot of evidence in that file and I am challenging the A-G and EOCO Boss that they should bring a few of us to come and analyze the file,” he lamented.
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