How Cecilia Dapaah claimed GH¢132k was her sitting allowance but OSP raised suspicion

• Posted on September 20, 2023September 20, 2023
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has made further disclosures about the cash discovered at the Abelemkpe residence of former Minister of Sanitation Cecilia Abena Dapaah.

The Office said she has been unable to justify the legitimacy of the monies.

For instance, various amounts were found stashed in 32 different envelopes totalling GH¢132,007and she claimed it was her sitting allowances.

“A record of the various sums sealed in said envelopes range from Four Hundred cedis (GH¢400.00) to Thirty-Eight Thousand One Hundred and Sixty cedis (GH¢ 38,160.00), most of which far exceed the approved sums recommended for payment to public officials as sitting allowances – raising suspicion as to the legitimacy of their sources,” the OSP stated in its fact sheet sighted by 3news.com on Tuesday, September 19.

Again Madam Dapaah’s husband had indicated that his niece remits money to him from the US for purposes of construction.

“However, the identified niece was unable to provide evidence of the source of the said amounts and evidence of lawful remittance of said sums to the second respondent,” OSP’s fact sheet noted.

“Whereupon she claimed to have personally and physically brought the said sums purportedly
amounting to Two Hundred Thousand United States dollars (US$ 200,000.00) without lawful
declaration.”

According to the OSP, the application to have Madam Abena Dapaah’s accounts and property frozen must be granted.

“On this score, the applicant has demonstrated beyond satisfaction from the foregoing that the first respondent, whose bank accounts and investments are under a freezing order, is being investigated for corruption and corruption-related offences including using public office for profit as deposed to in paragraph 6 above and that the frozen property is liable to be confiscated should it be subsequently established as tainted property.”

The OSP further revealed that there are several suspicious transactions running through the bank accounts and investments of Madam Abena Dapaah “and other transactions which cannot be attributed to her lawful income and her declared or disclosed sources of income at all material times in her position as a public officer”.

-3news