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Cecilia Dapaah operated real estate business with ‘fake identity’ – OSP reveals

In a new application to a High Court in Accra, the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) requested confirmation of the seizure of certain funds it had earlier taken from the home of censured former sanitation minister Cecilia Dapaah and an order to freeze several bank accounts.

In an 8-page court filing, which has been quoted by several local media outlets, the OSP outlines a number of findings it has made in relation to the confiscated monies, which total around US$590,000 and more than GH2.8 million in cash.

The OSP shed light on a number of enterprises the former minister is said to have been involved with, firms it claimed she exploited as part of her defense regarding the source of some of the funds in her residence.

“The OSP’s criminal intelligence further suggested that the first respondent, as a Minister of State, was engaged in an undisclosed and undeclared real estate business in which she obscured and concealed the transactions by employing the use of aliases to avoid detection of the actual ownership of the business and properties, while cleverly receiving the proceeds of the transactions in her bank accounts and investments.”

Cecilia Dapaah operated real estate business with ‘fake identity’ – OSP reveals

A further revelation in the document was that “criminal intelligence suggested that the first respondent had unexplained large cash sums of money (far above her income as a Minister of State) secreted and stashed up in her residence; and that her house-helps had allegedly helped themselves to part of said sums of money through larceny.”

The OSP stated that there was no proof of the source of the stolen cash in relation to the findings in the initial case where her two house helps are alleged to have stolen a million dollars, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in euros and Ghana cedis.

“There are no financial records and traces of the origin(s) of the money reportedly stolen from the residence of the respondents and the money discovered by the OSP at said residence.

“Further, there is no evidence of the amounts of money having been derived from any legitimate businesses, profession or vocation, and no evidence of said amounts having been lawfully declared and subjected to any statutory payments.

“During the search conducted in her presence, the first respondent disavowed and claimed no knowledge of the presence of the said cash sums in the residence. The conduct of the first respondent, being a public officer, heightened the suspicion of the authorised officers of the OSP that the cash sums were tainted property.”

On August 21, the court ordered the OSP to unfreeze the former minister’s accounts and restore her property; the office obliged and refroze them before submitting the present application.

The date of the hearing is set on October 18, 2023.

Akosua Boatemaa

I'm Yours Truly, Blogger Akosua Boatemaa. I'm here to feed Your eyes and Ears with Authentic News Updates.

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