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Attorney General and Minister of Justice Godfred Yeboah Dame claims that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), not his office, exonerated former sanitation minister Cecilia Dapaah of all charges linked to corruption.
This is in response to the Attorney General’s recommendation that the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) not pursue the investigation into Cecilia Dapaah’s financial activities for money laundering.
According to the Attorney General’s recommendation, there was no justification for the OSP’s request to EOCO that Cecilia Dapaah be looked into for possible money laundering.
The Attorney General clarified that the OSP’s investigations did not establish a predicate offense that would serve as the foundation for a money laundering inquiry.
A copy of the OSP’s cooperative investigations with the US FBI, which served as the foundation for the decision to forward the matter to EOCO, was not supplied by the OSP, the recommendations added.
Civil society organizations and anti-corruption authorities, however, have subsequently questioned the suggestion, with some charging that the Attorney General used the letter to try to clear Cecilia Dapaah.
Nonetheless, Godfred Yeboah Dame replied that the Special Prosecutor’s office would be the one to exonerate Cecilia Dapaah if any institution did so.
Godfred Yeboah Dame said, “the record must reflect the point that the OSP seized with the mandate to investigate corruption and corruption related offences, cleared Madam Cecilia Dapaah of corruption,” during an interview on Joy News.
He questioned why his office has been accused of clearing Cecilia Dapaah of corruption.
According to him, “EOCO never investigated her for corruption, the Attorney General has never investigated her for corruption. It is the OSP itself which conducted seven months of extensive investigations into it, and four months of what it describes as collaborative investigation and came to that conclusion.’”
Godfred Yeboah Dame justified his recommendation to the Economic and Organised Crime Office not to look into Cecilia Dapaah’s potential for money laundering by claiming that the OSP’s referral of the former sanitation minister was limited in scope.
According to him, a close examination of the referral letter indicates that the request may have involved money that Cecilia Dapaah is said to have brought to Ghana from the US.
He said the money that OSP officers took from Cecilia Dapaah’s home, the money that was previously blocked in her bank accounts, and the money that her housekeepers allegedly stole are not included in the recommendation.
During the same interview about the subject matter, the Attorney General called several of the responses to his letter, notably the Center for Democratic Development’s, deceptive.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
