OSP justifies inquiry to unravel source of Cecilia Dapaah’s stolen money

The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, has revealed that the decision by his office to investigate the source of substantial sums of money missing from the residence of former Sanitation Minister Cecilia Dapaah was prompted by legal action taken against her domestic staff by the Attorney General.

In an interview on Citi TV’s The Point of View on January 8, Mr. Agyebeng clarified that while the Attorney General was prosecuting Dapaah’s househelps for the alleged theft, the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) independently initiated an inquiry into the source of the over $1 million and other valuables stolen from the ex-minister’s Abelemkpe residence.

He indicated that the OSP collaborated with the Attorney General’s office in pursuit of the truth.

“From the OSP’s perspective, we are looking at what is the source of this money, and where is the money coming from. That this huge sum of money is sitting in a public officer’s house.”

“On this matter, we approached the Attorney General and said we were interested in what was going on at the other end, and that we were following up on it. Incidentally, it was actually the court processes filed by the Attorney General in respect of the theft case that propelled the investigation. We became interested when we saw those court processes”, he stated.

During the interview, Agyebeng emphasized that the Attorney General’s proceedings did not impede but rather complemented the work of the OSP.

“The Attorney General’s case did not hamper our work; it rather enhanced our work because if you are tracing whether someone actually stole this amount of money and the other end is investigating the source of the money, we are all going toward a comprehensive solution to the matter”, he said

The case unfolded in July 2023 when two domestic staff members of Cecilia Abena Dapaah and her husband, Daniel Osei Kuffour, were brought before an Accra Circuit Court, accused of embezzling substantial amounts of money and valuable items totaling millions of Ghana Cedis.