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Madam Cecilia Abena Dapaah, former Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Tuesday testified at an Accra High Court, giving evidence over stolen money, jewelry and personal effects from her residence.
The former Minister, the third prosecution witness, gave evidence in the case in which two of her former house maids and five others allegedly stole various sums of money from her residence. Meanwhile five of the accused persons have entered into plea bargaining with the state. They are Patience Botwe, the first accused person, Sarah Agyei, the second accused, Benjamin Sowah, third accused, Malik Dauda, fourth accused, and Yahya Sumaila, the seventh accused person.
Trial for Christina Achab and Job Pormary would, however, go on at the High Court. Being led by Abena Konadu Adjei, a State Attorney, Madam Dapaah identified her witness statement before the court, which was adopted as evidence in chief. The former minister recounted how her husband caught Patience, in one of their bedrooms, which used to be their storeroom, and how it had been ransacked.
On October 10, 2022, she returned home and when she entered the storeroom, she noticed it had been ransacked, and some belongings and valuables were missing. “We also found out that huge sums of money had been stolen from our storeroom. This included an amount of $210,000 belonging to my deceased brother, Nana Akwasi Essan II, alias Charles Dapaah,” she said.
The former Minister said: “$200,000 belonging to Dorcas Wiredua, a client and relative of my husband, and 300,000 Euro belonging to my husband were missing.” Again GHC300,000, which was contributions that she and her siblings made towards the upcoming final funeral rites of their late mother, Nana ode Nyarko II, was also missing. Furthermore GHC50,000, being her personal money, also went missing.
The Minister said she and her husband impressed on Patience to return the money and items. “We noticed that she will not return the money, and the police told us that our money was distributed to other people including the accused persons herein. We were told that Patience was granted bail, but she jumped bail,” she told the court.
She recalled how her sets of jewelry, worth over $50,000, were also stolen. Answering questions under cross-examination, the former minister told the court that she was now a retired public servant, but reported the matter to the police when she was still in active service. Madam Dapaah disagreed with defence counsel that she did not know the actual amount of money missing. The former Minister confirmed that the amount in cedis stolen were GHc300,000 and GHC50,000.
Again $200,000 and 300,000 Euros were stolen, she added. Madam Dapaah told the court that she did not know Christina Achab and Job Pomary and had never seen nor met them. When counsel put it to her that if she (former Minister) did not know Chirstina and Pomary, then they (accused) had no business to be in court, Madam said she was not legally equipped to answer that question. The matter has been adjourned to Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
Seven accused persons were put before the Criminal Court Two (High Court Division) for their various roles in the stealing of various sums of money, jewelry and other personal effects from Madam Dapaah and her husband’s residence. The seven accused persons have variously been charged with conspiracy to steal, stealing, dishonestly receiving and money laundering. They earlier denied the charges and were admitted to bail.
Source: GNA
