According to court documents submitted by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), Cecilia Dapaah, the former minister of sanitation, uses aliases to hide transactions from an unregistered real estate business.
“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.”
Additionally, an OSP document seen by InsightNewsgh.com revealed 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 Office of the Special Prosecutor has taken this latest action to confirm the seizure of allegedly tainted properties belonging to Cecilia Dapaah.
“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.”
This follows the Office of the Special Prosecutor‘s (OSP) filing of a motion at the High Court on Monday, September 11, seeking confirmation of orders seizing and freezing the financial assets of Cecilia Dapaah, a former minister of sanitation and water resources.
The date of the hearing is set for October 18, 2023.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) froze the former minister’s Cedi and Dollar bank accounts on August 9, but the Accra High Court overturned it on August 31.
The former minister’s money had to be returned to her within seven days, and the OSP was also told to unfreeze Cecilia Dapaah’s accounts by the court.
Days after the High Court requested the office to return the seized money, the OSP then used its authority to retake possession of the money.
