The Accra High Court’s Finance Division on Thursday rejected the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s (OSP) request to freeze the bank accounts of former Sanitation Minister Cecilia Abena Dapaah. The OSP has voiced disapproval of this judgment.
A press release on Thursday, August 31 emphasized that “the OSP respects the Court’s ruling, although it disagrees with the conclusion of the Court.”
The OSP provided three fundamental justifications for their choice.
Secondly, the OSP asserted, “the Court’s computation of the time limitation is, with due respect, erroneous,” given the two weeks that OSP agents searched three of Madam Abena Dapaah’s residences.
“Second, the OSP’s seizure and the Special Prosecutor’s freezing order were implemented on the very firm basis of a reasonable suspicion that the sums and bank balances were tainted property as Ms. Dapaah evaded questions about the source(s) of the sums she reported stolen from her home, the sums found in her home by the OSP, and the volume of transactions in her bank accounts and investments.
Finally, the freezing order was “based on court processes filed in a criminal matter before the Circuit Court, Accra, including Ms Dapaah as the complainant,” it emphasized. “The freezing order was not based on public views,” it added.
The OSP clarified that the further account freeze was done “not on the basis of the investigation, as indicated by the Court,” but rather to assist investigations as required by law.
So, it cannot be claimed that the OSP did not conduct adequate inquiries to support the freezing order.
This comes after the High Court rejected the OSP’s application, ordering it to return all seized assets of the former minister of state within seven days.
According to the Court, the action by the OSP was borne out of speculation and reaction to public sentiments, thus undertaking poor investigations subsequently.
It said there was no justifiable basis for the seizure of the property as the OSP entered the act wrongly.
The Court also found the OSP to have no reasonable grounds to freeze the bank accounts of the former Bantama Member of Parliament (MP).
