Executive Director of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), Maame Yaa Tiwa Addo-Danquah, has announced that her office will be returning the dossier it received from the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) concerning the investigation into former Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah, for money laundering.
Addressing the media at the 14th Commonwealth Regional Conference of Heads of Anti-corruption Agencies in Africa, Tiwa Addo-Danquah explained that EOCO could not proceed with the investigation as there was insufficient evidence to pursue.
She expressed concerns that continuing the investigation would amount to a futile effort, suggesting that her office would be engaging in a fruitless pursuit.
Furthermore, Tiwa Addo-Danquah emphasized the importance of state institutions being transparent and forthright with the public, particularly when their investigations yield no substantial findings.
“If you read the Attorney-General’s advice, whatever we would have done has already been directed at the Police CID. And as he (the Attorney General) said this morning, when you investigate a case and do not find anything, we should be bold enough to come and tell the public that for this case, even though I suspected this at the outset, that wasn’t what came out; we should be bold with the Ghanaian.
“So, we cannot continue to fish when you don’t even know what you are looking for. You just go about looking for something that you know you are not even sure of,” she is quoted to have said.
The EOCO boss added, “So, what I am going to do is that, with the Attorney-General’s advice, I will send the docket that we received from the OSP back to him, confirming that there is nothing in it.”
The OSP closed its case against the former minister and her husband, who were accused of corruption and corruption-related offences after two of their housekeepers allegedly stole $1 million and €300,000 in cash, along with other valuable items from their residence in Abelemkpe.
The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, concluded that his office lacked the authority to prosecute or take further action against the former minister and referred the case to EOCO. The referral was based on the suspicion that the large sums of money found at Cecilia Dapaah’s residence and bank accounts could be the proceeds of a money laundering and structuring scheme.
The Attorney General, Godfred Dame, in advice to the EOCO boss on how to proceed with Cecilia Dapaah’s case, said, “The OSP’s referral to EOCO for investigations to be conducted into money laundering is without basis.”
He also said that there was no evidence of corruption or procurement breaches against the former minister and her husband, Daniel Osei Kufuor.
“A study of the docket from the OSP and the report by your office indicates that: a. investigations by the OSP did not establish any evidence of corruption, corruption-related offences, or procurement breaches against the suspects; b.
the OSP has returned money and other properties retrieved from the suspects in the course of their investigations to them, and the suspects have been accordingly discharged by the OSP,” parts of a letter Dame wrote to Tiwa Addo-Danquah, which was sighted reads.