A High Court in Accra has received a new application from the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) asking for permission to freeze some bank accounts and confirmation of the seizure of some funds it had earlier taken from the home of beleaguered former sanitation minister Cecilia Dapaah.
The OSP details a variety of discoveries it had made on the seized funds, which total roughly US$590,000 and more than GH2.8 million in cash, in an 8-page lawsuit seen by 1Family Radio.
The OSP revealed a number of enterprises the former minister was allegedly involved in, including firms it claimed she used as part of the defense she allegedly made regarding the source of some of the funds in her home.
“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.’’
It continued, “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.’’
“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 often of amounts of money having been derived from any legitimate businesses, professions, or vocations, 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 respondents disavowed and claimed no knowledge of the presence of the said cash sums in her residence. The conduct of the first respondent, being a public officer, heightened the suspicion of the authorized officers of the OSP that the cash sums were tainted property,’’ it added.
Source: 1Familyradio