Court orders OSP to return Cecilia Dapaah’s seized money
The Office of the Special Prosecutor has been ordered to restore all of the funds that were taken from the troubled former sanitation minister Cecilia Dapaah by the Financial and Economic Division of an Accra High Court. This decision must be complied with within seven days, the court ordered. Additionally, the Court stated that it…
The Office of the Special Prosecutor has been ordered to restore all of the funds that were taken from the troubled former sanitation minister Cecilia Dapaah by the Financial and Economic Division of an Accra High Court.
This decision must be complied with within seven days, the court ordered.
Additionally, the Court stated that it was unable to authenticate the freezing of her bank accounts and other assets.
Cecilia Abena Dapaah objected to the OSP’s request to take her property and freeze her accounts.
It came after the OSP filed a request to affirm the decree freezing and seizing the contaminated property of the former Minister.
The OSP said to facilitate investigations, it considered it necessary for the issuance of a “freezing order against the bank account and investment of the former Minister at Prudential Bank Limited and Societe General Ghana in accordance with Section 38 (1) of Act 959 and regulation 19 (I) of LI 2374”.
The OSP then carried out searches at three residential residences connected to the former Minister in Accra’s Cantonment, Abelemkpe, and Tesano.
Victoria Barth, who represented Madam Dapaah in a virtual hearing of the High Court, argued that the application of the OSP was brought in flagrant violation of the OSP’s own enabling law and sought to perpetrate the arbitrary exercise of powers based only on suspicion fed by false information and media hysteria.
In order to avoid the concealment of a property thought to be tainted with corruption, Dr. Isidore Tufour, Counsel for the OSP, contended that the OSP’s application was in accordance with the Special Prosecutor’s Act, Act (959).
After hearing the parties’ submissions, the judge set August 31, 2023, to rule on whether it could confirm the OSP’s application.
