100 citizens petition Speaker to probe EOCO’s conduct in Cecilia Dapaah money laundering allegation

The group, led by former Auditor General Daniel Yaw Domelovo and consisting of Dr. Adam Bonaa, Justice Abdulai, Martin Kpebu, and others, notes that it finds EOCO’s decision to write to the Attorney General untenable.

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A group of 100 persons who call themselves ‘concerned citizens’ have petitioned the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, demanding a probe into the conduct of EOCO in the money laundering allegation against former sanitation minister Cecilia Dapaah.

The group, led by former Auditor General Daniel Yaw Domelovo and consisting of Dr. Adam Bonaa, Justice Abdulai, Martin Kpebu, and others, notes that it finds EOCO’s decision to write to the Attorney General untenable.

On January 25, 2024, the Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP) withdrew from ongoing cases against the former Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah.

The cases, which included a motion for confirmation of the freezing of her assets and a criminal one that bordered on the failure of the former minister to declare her assets, were transferred to EOCO.

Subsequently, the Attorney General, in an advisory letter, indicated that a request by the Office of the Special Prosecutor to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to investigate Madam Cecilia Dapaah for the offense of money laundering ‘is without basis.’

The petitioners, however, state that the facts of the Cecilia Dapaah case and the evidence presented by the OSP are public evidence since the former minister had not even been able to satisfactorily explain the source of the money frozen by the OSP.

Further, the petitioners allege that there is ample evidence on the matter, coupled with a docket that contains over twenty (20) witness statements, and thus it is doubtful that EOCO can comprehend the details of the docket.

Also, the petition makes reference to a press statement released by EOCO that claimed it had returned the docket to OSP but was contradicted by the Executive Secretary a few days later to the effect that she was about to return the docket.

Moreover, it mentions a May 4, 2024, statement by the Attorney General on Joy FM that EOCO had finished its investigation into the matter, which they claim directly contradicts an earlier statement made by the AG in his representative letter to EOCO.

The group is thus calling on the Speaker of Parliament to set up a bipartisan committee to probe ‘the lapses, including inactions on the part of EOCO, the A-G, etc.”