One-time Minister of Sanitation in Ghana, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, who resigned over the weekend after her house workers allegedly stole more than $1 million in cash from her home, has been arrested for suspected corruption.
Confirming the arrest, special prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng said Dapaah was placed under arrest on Monday “in respect of suspected corruption and corruption-related offences regarding large amounts of money.”
Although the ex-Minister has denied any involvement in crimes, the matter has drawn sharp criticisms from Ghana’s opposition, which questioned how a minister could have such huge amounts of cash in her home.
Ghana’s special prosecutor’s office deals with cases of corruption involving public officials, judges, or senior political party members.
However, some public affairs analysts in Nigeria maintain that such an arrest or prosecution is unlikely to happen in Nigeria as several public officials that have been linked with stacking huge sums of money at home and elsewhere are walking about free.
In November 2022 operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) claimed to have discovered billions of Naira in cash stashed in various houses of some serving governors.
Then EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa earlier hinted that three serving state governors were being monitored over their moves to launder stashed billions of naira through the payment of salaries to workers.
Similarly, the anti-corruption unit discovered more than $43 million at an upscale apartment in Lagos in April 2017, and later that year when the National Assembly commenced a probe of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) over allegation of unremitted fuel subsidy funds to the tune of N5.1 trillion collected between 2006 and 2015, the Senate raised the alarm that corrupt politicians now hide stolen money in caskets and uncompleted buildings in remote villages.
The Ghana Sanitation minister’s arrest came as President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government deals with the country’s worst economic crisis in years, which has pushed Ghana to seek a $3 billion loan from the IMF.
Akufo-Addo’s ruling NPP party is preparing for primaries later this year to choose its candidate to run in next year’s election.
In her statement on Saturday, Dapaah handed in her resignation, saying she did not want to be a “hindrance” to the government, but rejected reports of such large amounts of cash at the family home.
Dapaah said: “I am resigning therefore because I do not want this matter to become a preoccupation of government and a hindrance to the work of government.”
According to court documents, the two domestic workers face charges of stealing $1 million, 300,000 euros, and millions of local Ghanaian cedis, as well as clothing. from a bedroom last year.
Akufo-Addo on Sunday accepted the resignation and applauded the former minister for her loyalty and “devotion”, his spokesman said.
But former Ghanaian leader, John Dramani Mahama, who is the opposition NDC candidate for the 2024 election, described the incident as “scandalous”.
“$1m + €300k and millions of GHS in a Ghanaian Minister’s home? Scandalous!! Even if genuinely acquired, why keep millions of hard currencies at home?” he wrote on his Twitter account.
“Will Akufo-Addo ever set a good example for public office holders in his administration?”
A good governance advocate, Baffour Agyeman-Duah, has called on the ombudsman to probe the case.
“A lot is going through people’s minds. It involves a high-ranking public official so the Office of the Special Prosecutor must take it up just to clear any doubts,” he told AFP.
