Embattled former minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah has broken her long silence on claims by the Office of the Special Prosecutor indicating $ 5 million and GHC48 million were found in her bank accounts.
It would be recalled Joynews broke the story indicating it has found documents that show the OSP has frozen the Societe General and Prudential Bank accounts of the former minister.
It further indicated that the Prudential bank account had $5m and GHC 48m whilst GHC1 million and GHC 700 were in investment and cash respectively were found in her Societe General account.
Cecilia Dapaah through her lawyers has reacted to the reports that have since gone viral in Ghana’s media space.
According to her lawyers, the OSP did not state any amount in the applications it filed at the high court to freeze her accounts. They are however at a loss on where the quoted amounts could be coming from.
“On 8 August 2023, the Office of the Special Prosecutor… filed an application in the High Court, Financial Division to confirm among others a freezing order regarding our client’s bank accounts. Although the Application did not disclose any specific amounts of money found in the bank accounts, your news outlet, JoyNews published false information about the amounts in those accounts while ascribing the information to nameless, unidentified, and unverifiable sources.
“Not only had the OSP not disclosed any amounts found in our client’s accounts, but the assertion that our client’s accounts contain $5m and GH¢48m is false,” parts of the statement, indicated.
Her lawyers indicate that the story published by the media house about the amount found in the accounts was false since the OSP has denied disclosing sums of money in their client’s account to the media.
“Indeed, at about 4 pm of that same day, 10th August 2023, the Office of the Special Prosecutor via one of its verified social media handles “Office of the Special Prosecutor-Ghana, @ospghana” rebutted and dispelled claims that it had revealed any specific amounts of monies found in our client’s bank accounts.
“Despite this rebuttal, at 7 pm of 10 August 2023, your outfit continued to post material alluding to the false statement that $5m and GH¢48m had been found in our client’s bank accounts,” the lawyers added.