The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has welcomed the resignation of Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, 24 hours after the stolen money scandal went viral.
Speaking to Umaru Sanda Amadu on Citi TV, Programmes Manager of GII, Mary Addah explained that it is early to conclude the stolen funds are proceeds of corruption.
“This is too early to make some corruption pronouncements, but the future is not looking good because there is no law in Ghana preventing people from keeping their money in their houses. However, if it has to do with a public officer, then it becomes worrying particularly when the person is in an area where there are a lot of procurement happening.”
Madam Addah urged the government and other relevant state agencies to commission an independent probe to get to the bottom of the matter.
“This is a critical matter of interest because apart from the fact that she is a public officer, this is a government that has espoused that we need to digitize our processes and make money easily accessible online and so for such a person to have so much such that $1 million of it is taken away without her knowing is very worrying.”
“Again this is a person in a government where people’s investments have been touched during the domestic debt exchange programme and so this can have the tendency of demotivating people from sending their money to the bank because a Minister stored money in her house.”
Why did Cecilia Dapaah resign?
Two house helps of Madam Dapaah and three others are currently facing charges before an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly stealing an amount of $1 million, €300,000, and millions of Ghanaian cedis at the former minister’s residence at Abelenkpe, Accra, in October 2022.
The two house helps, 18-year-old Patience Botwe and 30-year-old Sarah Agyei allegedly stole the monies and personal effects of Abena Dapaah and her husband, between the months of July and October 2022.
Madam Dapaah has become the talk of town with many asking questions about the legitimacy of the money involved.
Dapaah submitted her resignation letter to the president on Saturday, July 22, 2023, a day after she became the talk of town because her house helps had allegedly stolen huge sums of foreign and local currencies from her residence in Accra.
In her resignation letter, Madam Dapaah said she decided to step down “because I do not want this matter to become a preoccupation of government and a hindrance to the work of government at such a crucial time.”
