Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu, has said that the claim by Former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah that monies transferred from her dead brother’s account were for payment of his children’s fees, is difficult to believe.
Kpebu says that this claim should have come out long ago when the issue first emerged. “I can’t believe Madam Dapaah’s story, this should have come out long ago,” he said on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on Monday, October 9.
“This story is hard to believe,” he stressed.
Madam Dapaah made her comments while responding to claims by the Office of the Special Prosecutor that the transfer in question was suspicious since the brother has been dead for some time now.
The OSP had filed an affidavit seeking confirmation of a new seizure of the funds. She explained, “…the truth is that funds were transferred from an account in the name ‘The Late Nana Akwasi Essan’ to which I am a signatory.”
“The funds were transferred to me for payment of the school fees of my late brother’s children” lawyers of the former Minister stated in court documents.
She further explained that the said funds “were transferred from Cal Bank from an account in the name ‘The Late Nana Akwasi Essan’ to which I am a signatory adding that “this account was opened with funeral donations collected by Cal Bank at my late brothers funeral.”
“The correct account name is conspicuously stated in Applicant’s Exhibit OSP18 and the Applicant could easily have ascertained the mandate on the account from Cal Bank. The funds are transferred to me for payment of the school fees of my late brother’s children,” she added.
By: Laud Nartey
