Cecilia Dapaah has stated that the funds transferred from her deceased brother’s account were intended for the payment of his children’s educational fees.
This statement was made in response to allegations made by the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which deemed the transfer suspicious due to the fact that Ms. Dapaah’s brother had been deceased for a significant period of time. Ms. Dapaah clarified that the account in question had been opened with funds collected by Cal Bank during her brother’s funeral.
“…the truth is that funds were transferred from an account in the name “The Late Nana Akwasi Essan” to which I am a signatory. The funds were transferred to me for payment of the school fees of my late brother’s children” lawyers of the former Minister stated in court documents cited by 3news.com.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor has returned to the High Court to seek confirmation of its freeze and seizure order. It is worth noting that the OSP had previously seized $590,000 and 2,862,007 Ghana cedis during a search of Ms. Dapaah’s residence, with her accounts subsequently being frozen.
However, an Accra High Court issued an order allowing for the release of the cash and the unfreezing of the accounts. The OSP complied with this order, but shortly thereafter announced that it had seized the cash again and issued a fresh freezing order. In response, the Minister has filed court documents through her lawyers, requesting that the court once again reject the OSP’s request for confirmation of its actions.
The lawyers have accused the OSP of acting in bad faith and making false allegations against the Minister. They recount that on September 4, they were summoned to the OSP’s offices to receive the seized cash. After waiting for hours, the monies were released, but as they reached the car park, they were instructed to return to the office they had just left.
“When I got to the 7th floor, I was told by one of the applicant’s officers that he had the pleasure to inform me that the applicant (OSP) was re-seizing the money. They proceeded to re-count it and then served me notice of the re-seizure,” the Minister recounts in court documents.
The OSP had also accused the former Minister of engaging in an undeclared real estate business. It was further alleged that she had sold a property to a third party under the alias “Nana Yaa Ode”. Ms. Dapaah says she has no real estate business and investigators have failed to provide any evidence to back this claim. She adds that she did not conceal her identity to sell any property but rather sold the said property in a representative capacity for Nana Yaa Ode also known as Nana Ode Nyarko, her mother who is now deceased.
The application of the OSP was originally scheduled to be presented before the High Court on Wednesday, 18th October 2023. However, Ms Dapaah’s lawyer, Victoria Barth, has submitted a request for an expedited hearing of the application. Ms Barth contends that as the OSP’s action is a repeated application, they are already aware of the grounds on which Ms Dapaah opposes it. Therefore, an early hearing would not cause any prejudice to the OSP.
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