OSP charges Cecilia Dapaah over failure to declare assets

The Office of the Special Prosecutor has charged former Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah for failing to respond to a notice served on her to declare her income and property.

Madam Dapaah has been specifically charged with one count of failing to comply with a lawful demand by an officer of the OSP in the performance of his functions, contrary to section 69(1)(a) of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959), according to documents filed by the OSP on October 6, 2023.

“Cecilia Abena Dapaah, 68 years, August 25, 2023, in Accra in the Greater Accra Region of the Republic of Ghana and within the jurisdiction of this Court, being a suspect under investigation for corruption and corruption-related offences including using public office for profit in respect of suspected tainted large cash sums reportedly stolen from your residential premises and also retrieved from same by the Office of the Special Prosecutor, without lawful excuse, failed, within 30 days, to comply with a notice to declare your property and income served on you by the Special Prosecutor on 24 July 2023 under regulation 20(1) per Forms 1A and 1B of the First Schedule of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (Operations) Regulations, 2018 (L.I. 2374) as specified in regulation 20(2) and Form 21 of the First Schedule of the Ofice of the Special Prosecutor (Operations) Regulations, 2018 (L.I. 2374)."

The former Minister has meanwhile filed an interlocutory injunction against the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), asking the court to restrain the OSP until the application on the freezing of her assets is determined. 

According to the injunction she  filed today, October 10, 2023, the former Minister is also asking the court to order the OSP to declare the reseizure of money found at her residence and refreezing of her bank accounts as unfair and capricious.

“A Declaration that the Respondent’s re-seizure of the money (initially seized from the Applicant’s home on 24/07/23) and re-freezing of Applicant’s bank accounts respectively on 5th September 2023 is unfair, unreasonable, capricious, arbitrary, and ultra vires the Respondent’s statutory powers under Act 959 relative to the constitutional provisions of Articles 23 and 296 of the Constitution, 1992," her application noted. 

“It is the Applicants' considered view that they would suffer irreparable harm if the Respondent is not restrained pending the final determination of the substantive matter.”