If EOCO cannot proceed with Cecilia Dapaah’s case then CHRAJ should take over – Vitus Azeem

Mr. Vitus Azeem

Anti-graft campaigner, Vitus Azeem has called on the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to take over investigations into the money laundering accusations against former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah.

The former Minister has been under investigation since huge sums of money were found at her residence.

Early this year, the Officer of the Special Prosecutor handed over the case to EOCO to look into suspected money laundering.

In a latest development, the Office of the Attorney General (AG) and Ministry of Justice has said there is no basis for EOCO to conduct money laundering investigations into the affairs of Cecilia Dapaah.

"In the absence of the identification of any criminality associated with the properties retrieved from the suspects, the OSP's referral to EOCO for investigations to be conducted into money laundering is without basis,” the Office of the Attorney General said.

Commenting on the matter, anti-graft campaigner Vitus Azeem has noted that he agrees the mater should not have been sent to EOCO.

According to him, CHRAJ should take over the matter instead.

“In the very beginning, I even said that CHRAJ was also the appropriate body to do the investigation in terms of looking at her asset declaration to establish if these monies were acquired legally and from genuine employment or not. They have to establish how the money was acquired. So the matter shouldn’t end there if EOCO thinks that it cannot proceed, even if the Attorney General thinks that EOCO cannot proceed, I think that the matter should go to CHRAJ and the matter should also go to GRA.

“To establish if the lady was doing a genuine business and earned the money and whether was tax paid. So there are still two institutions that can take up this matter and not allow it to just end,” Mr. Azeem proposed.