By Gifty Boateng
A former Sanitation and Water Resources Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah has found herself in fresh trouble, years after resigning from her position.
She is apparently being investigated by the security agencies over a contract she superintendent over while a minister under the erstwhile Akufo-Addo government.
She has been invited by the police to defend her actions, as party of the ongoing Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) investigations..
The minister, who left office in 2023, under a controversial circumstance, awarded the contract to a private firm, Aqua Africa owned by one Philip James Foster.
Recall she resigned after various cash amounts in different denominations, including dollars and other personal effects, were stolen from her by her maids and the case were reported to the police and finally landed in court, dragging till today.
It is unclear the details of the said contract but according to account by a private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu, Foster has been arrested and interrogated by the police.
She is said to have awarded the contract without express permission of the Attorney General and Minister for Justice as mandated by the procurement law.
The action was taken last week according to the lawyer, who disclosed this on Accra FM’s Citizen Show.
While the contract details are sketchy, Kpebu said the action by the police followed intel that even though the contract cash was paid, the job was executed in a substandard manner.
“Let me tell you even with a normal police the Cecilia Dapaah, apart from the moneys that were found in her house, there was also a contract she signed without recourse to the Attorney General—- the name of the company is Aqua Africa owned by Philip James Foster,” he said on Accra FM’s Ekosii Sen.
The New Republic gathered that the owner of the private firm is being asked by authorities to refund the said contract sum.
Kpebu was speaking on the seeming delaying in the prosecution of former appointees of the Akufo-Addo government who have mostly been listed in the government’s Operation Recover All Loot documents.
In that interview, he intimated that, the seeming delay is unfounded and that officials are busily working and that the fact that they are not making known what they are up to does not mean nothing is being done.
It was during interview that he cited the Cecilia Dapaah case indicating it is just one of many cases being looked into on the quiet.
Additionally, he advocated for more lawyers for the AG’s department as the workloads were enormous.
“Of course, naturally if we can get more lawyers to go and help the Attorney General, it will help. If government can recruit more lawyers, it will help the speed for the Attorney General and his deputies and other senior lawyers. Naturally, they are not many a such, .Often, Attorney General Office their lawyers are not many so if government has funds and wants to recruit more lawyers I think that one it can help”, he advocated during the interview on Accra FM’s ‘Citizens Show’.
The lawyer and social commentator was a member of five individuals who were tasked by President John Dramani Mahama in the early days of his administration, to collate all information concerning former appointees alleged to have looted the state.
The other members are the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, a former Auditor General; Daniel Yao Domelevo, investigative journalist and now boss of the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO); Raymond Archer and former police chief; Nathan Kofi Boakye.