Anti-corruption Activist Vitus Azeem has urged the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to probe accusations of money laundering against Cecilia Dapaah.
Following the Office of the Attorney General (AG) and Ministry of Justice’s statement asserting no grounds for the Economic and Organized Crimes Office (EOCO) to investigate former Sanitation Minister Cecilia Abena Dapaah for money laundering, questions linger.
Initially, the Special Prosecutor (OSP) dropped charges against Dapaah, transferring the case to EOCO for money laundering inquiries. However, upon reviewing documents provided by EOCO, the AG’s office advised against EOCO pursuing money laundering investigations.
Addressing this development on Morning Starr with Francis Abban, Vitus Azeem emphasized that the matter should not be closed hastily.
Azeem suggested that CHRAJ could investigate Dapaah’s asset declaration to determine the legality of her income sources. Additionally, he proposed GRA’s involvement to scrutinize Dapaah’s business activities, ensuring tax compliance.
In Azeem’s view, both CHRAJ and GRA have roles to play in ensuring transparency and accountability, preventing the case from being prematurely concluded.
“In the very beginning, I even said that CHRAJ was also the appropriate body to do the investigation in terms of looking at her asset declaration to establish if these monies were acquired legally and from genuine employment or not. They have to establish how the money was acquired.
“So the matter shouldn’t end there if EOCO thinks that it cannot proceed; even if the Attorney General thinks that EOCO cannot proceed, I think that the matter should go to CHRAJ, and the matter should also go to GRA to establish if the lady was doing a genuine business and earned the money, and whether tax was paid. So there are still two institutions that can take up this matter and not allow it to just end,” Mr. Azeem said.