In the United States of America, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, a former minister of sanitation, and her accomplices are the subject of parallel investigations by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
On Wednesday, the OSP stated in a post on ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, that “These investigations primarily focus on examining their assets and financial transactions within the United States of America.”
According to the OSP, the collaborative effort is to ascertain the lawfulness of Ms Dapaah and her associates’ wealth, “both in the context of their funds transitioning from Ghana to the United States and vice versa.”
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)@USEmbassyGhana have initiated concurrent inquiries into the activities of Cecilia Abena Dapaah, the former Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, and her associates. These…
— Office of the Special Prosecutor-Ghana (@ospghana) October 11, 2023
Ms. Dapaah first gained attention in July when it was revealed that two of her housekeepers were in court in Accra for allegedly stealing millions of Ghana Cedis worth of goods and money.
On July 22, 2023, she resigned from her job as a result of several requests from the general people.
In the meantime, the former sanitation minister filed a request for an interlocutory injunction against the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) in an effort to prevent the Office from looking into and bringing charges against her and her husband, Daniel Osei Kufuor, for alleged corruption and crimes related to corruption.
According to court records that were made public to Citinewsroom.com, the former Minister is also pleading with the judge to order the OSP to unfreeze her bank accounts.
She is praying the court to also declare the reseizure of monies found in her Abelemkpe residence and the refreezing of her bank accounts as unfair and capricious.
“A Declaration that the Respondent’s re-seizure of the money (initially seized from the Applicant’s home on 24/07/23) and re-freezing of Applicant’s bank accounts respectively on 5th September 2023 is unfair, unreasonable, capricious, arbitrary, and ultra vires the Respondent’s statutory powers under Act 959 relative to the constitutional provisions of Articles 23 and 296 of the Constitution, 1992.”
Madam Dapaah’s lawyers are also seeking the court to issue “an Order prohibiting the Respondent from continuing the investigation of the Applicant and her husband for corruption or corruption-related offences.”
Court documents filed by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) in September disclosed that Madam Dapaah used aliases to conceal transactions from undeclared real estate business and other transactions to justify the reseizure and refreezing of her bank account.
But the former Minister described the claims as misleading.
