Cecilia Dapaah, the former minister of sanitation is currently embroiled in a legal dispute.
The Accra High Court’s Financial and Economic Division has ordered the Office of the Special Prosecutor to release all of the money that was taken from her.
Within the next week, this judgement must be implemented in accordance with the court’s direction.
Additionally, the court stated that it is unable to corroborate the freezing of her bank accounts and any other possessions.
Cecilia Abena Dapaah fought against the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s (OSP) suit to take her property and freeze her bank accounts.
It came as a result of the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s (OSP) submission of a motion for confirmation of the order to freeze and seize the tainted property of the former Minister.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) stated that it believed it was necessary to issue a “freezing order against the bank account and investment of the former Minister at Prudential Bank Limited and Société General Ghana in accordance with Section 38 (1) of Act 959 and regulation 19 (I) of LI 2374” in order to make it easier to conduct investigations.
Court orders OSP to return Cecilia Dapaah’s seized money
After that, the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) carried out search in three residential residences connected to the former Minister in Accra’s Cantonment, Abelemkpe, and Tesano neighborhoods.
Victoria Barth, who represented Madam Dapaah in a virtual sitting 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 on nothing more than suspicion fueled by misrepresentation of facts and media frenzy. She argued that this was an attempt to perpetrate the arbitrary exercise of powers based on nothing more than suspicion.
Dr. Isidore Tufour, Counsel for the OSP, claimed that the application of the OSP was in conformity with the Special Prosecutor’s Act (959) to prohibit the hiding of property that is suspected to be tainted with corruption. This was done in order to prevent the OSP from being found in violation of the law.
After hearing the various parties’ points of contention, the court set the date of August 31, 2023, as the day it would decide whether or not it could approve the OSP’s application.