Development expert at C. K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS), Dr Sumaila Asaah, has revealed that controversy surrounding immediate past Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah’s wealth is a negative contribution to gender advocacy in the country.
According to him, women have over the period been encouraged to take space in the political scene to enable them take part in critical decisions of government. However, he indicated that the controversy surrounding the stealing of some huge amount of money belonging to her by house helps defeats the advocacy by some activists.
“… This is quite a negative contribution to our efforts as gender advocates. To a large extent, why should we reduce this country to this level, that everybody is now looting and hoarding? This is a sign of hoarding, if you are not hoarding, why would you want to keep dollars in cash, in your bedroom?”
Dr Sumaila Asaah
Dr Asaah stated that there is some level of “recklessness” that has been exhibited by Cecilia Dapaah in relation to the money found in her home. He noted that it’s also quite “mind boggling” that such an amount can be taken from her.
“If you look at the charge against those young ladies, they couldn’t just take one day and one month to build houses. It means these monies have been kept there for a long time and these girls have been going there and picking it, probably daily, weekly. It’s so unfortunate to hear those stories and I’m so much worried because as a gender advocate, we always talk about how women should get into power.”
Dr Sumaila Asaah
Commenting on the the source of Cecilia Dapaah’s wealth, Dr Asaah stated that the source could have been legitimate. However, he questioned why the former sanitation minister resorted to keeping such huge monies in her home.
“I’m not going to look at it whether she stole it from the state or whatever, but even if she has done a genuine business to generate that amount of money, I don’t think you will go and put it there… It just shows that probably this money was gotten from no toil, so you don’t respect the money and probably this behavior is a sign of shaming the money… To be frank, you can interpret it from several angles and each of the angle you look at, it doesn’t make sense.”
Dr Sumaila Asaah
Cecilia Dapaah should have been sacked
Touching on the acceptance of Cecilia Dapaah’s resignation by President Akufo-Addo, Dr Asaah highlighted that the President shouldn’t have in any way accepted the resignation. He indicated that instead, President Akufo-Addo should have adopted a more stringent position.
“Coming from the President, I respect the President but just accepting her resignation is not so deterrent enough. To me, I think the President had the opportunity to refuse or to not accept the resignation and fire her. To accept the resignation, that is quite honorable. It’s an honorable way of exiting the office and I think the President probably should have done something better in this particular case…
“I think this particular one was an opportunity for the President not to condone this and fire her and that would have been quite deterrent and would have been a sign to most of us who probably would have been getting into politics and those in government…”
Dr Sumaila Asaah
Meanwhile, the Director of Research at the Institue of Economic Affairs (IEA) Dr John Kwakye, has asked the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to investigate the source of the wealth of the immediate past Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah.
Dr Kwakye revealed that just as an appointee of the previous John Mahama administration, Victoria Hammah, paid the price for merely envisioning making $1 million in office, Madam Dapaah must also be investigated by the OSP.
