The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has rejected claims by the Attorney-General that its outfit had cleared Cecilia Abena Dapaah of her money laundering charges.
According to the OSP, it requires a thorough investigation before it could be concluded that one has been cleared of any charge or allegation.
In the Cecilia Dapaah matter, however, the OSP says no such thing has happened and indicating that the woman has been cleared by the Office is not accurate.
“The AG saying that we had cleared Cecilia Dapaah of any offence is also not accurate because the OSP has never cleared Cecilia Dapaah because when you say you have cleared someone, it means that you have investigated and come to the conclusion that no offence has been committed,” Director of Strategy, Research, and Communications at the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), Samuel Appiah Darko, said on Citi FM Tuesday, May 07, 2024.
He also urged EOCO to be sincere and declare to the public, its lack of appetite to investigate and prosecute Cecilia Dapaah, rather than trying to blame the OSP for its inability to probe the money laundering charges levelled against the former Sanitation and Water Resources Minister.
EOCO’s Executive Director, Maame Yaa Tiwa Addo-Danquah in a media interaction at the 14th Commonwealth Regional Conference of Heads of Anti-corruption Agencies in Africa on Monday, May 06, 2024, disclosed that steps were being taken to return the docket to the OSP after the OSP forwarded Cecilia Dapaah’s docket to them for investigation.
This was after the OSP had observed that the money laundering charges in the matter lies in the purview of EOCO. However, the EOCO, following an advice to it by the Attorney-General had indicated that it was returning the dockets to the OSP.
According to Madam Addo-Danquah, whatever they “would have done had already been directed at the police CID” and so there is nothing her outfit could do.
But according to Mr. Appiah Darko, the EOCO should be blunt with Ghanaians that it cannot investigate and prosecute the former Minister rather than creating the impression that it is the fault of the OSP that hampered their probe.
“The second point I want to make is this whole idea that the docket that the OSP sent to EOCO was baseless and if you will indulge me, I am going to be a bit detailed, although we are not supposed to do this but our point is that if there is no appetite to want to investigate and prosecute, tell the people of Ghana that there is no appetite but don’t try to put the blame on the OSP,” he said on Citi FM Tuesday, May 07, 2024.
Money laundering suspicion: Kpebu suspects A-G’s advice to EOCO a ploy to free Cecilia Dapaah
Background
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, a 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.
