A Ghanaian minister accused of corruption was arrested on Monday July 24 after a scandal revealed that she was holding more than a million dollars in cash in her home.
The Minister of Sanitation and Water, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, who resigned at the week-end, “was arrested on suspicion of corruption over large sums of money (…) allegedly stolen from her home”, Attorney General Kissi Agyebeng, said on Monday.
Mrs Dapaah has denied any wrongdoing, but the case has angered the opposition, which wonders why a minister would keep so much money in her family home. According to court documents, two domestic servants stole one million dollars, 300,000 euros and millions of Ghanaian cedis from the minister’s bedroom last year.
In a statement published on Saturday, Ms Dapaah tendered her resignation, while denying that such large sums had been stolen. “While I can categorically state that these figures do not accurately represent what my husband and I reported to the police, I am fully aware of the significance of such stories surrounding a person in my position,” she wrote. “I am therefore resigning because I do not want this matter to become a concern for the government and an impediment to its work.”
President Nana Akufo-Addo has accepted his minister’s resignation while congratulating her on her loyalty and “dedication”, his spokesman said in a statement. His party, the NPP, is preparing to hold primaries later this year to choose its candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
The scandal comes as the country faces its worst economic crisis in decades, prompting the Government to request a $3 billion loan from the IMF. Former Ghanaian president John Dramani Mahama, the opposition candidate (NDC) in 2024, described the incident as “scandalous”. “One million dollars plus 300,000 euros and millions of GHS in the house of a Ghanaian minister? Outrageous! Even if it’s a genuine acquisition, why keep millions of dollars at home?”, he wrote on his Twitter account.