Former member of parliament for Tamale Central and legal practitioner, Inusah Fuseini, has disclosed that the decision by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to re-seize former sanitation minister, Cecilia Dapaah’s assets and re-freeze her bank accounts is normal practice.
According to him, it is something almost all legal practitioners have encountered in court. He stated that this particularly happens in arrest situations, where the arrested person is kept in jail beyond the stipulated period of time that an accused person can be held in custody.
Mr Fuseini explained that in such instances, the court might rule that the person be released, and the police stands at the entrance, immediately re-arrest the accused person when he comes out. This, he noted, is almost the same principle applied by the Special Prosecutor.
Moreover, Mr Fuseini stated that the fact that the court ordered the return of the seized properties to Cecilia Dapaah was not because the court believed that the property is not tainted. However, he explained that it was because of procedural lapses that occurred during the seizure.
“… So, non-compliance with procedures stipulated in the statute can result in what happened in court the last time he went to freeze the assets.
“So, what has happened is normal practice. The money has not been washed out of the suspicion that it is money which is tainted by corruption or corruption-related offence. It’s a jail-hazard character and having that character means that the Special Prosecutor can re-seize the money or freeze the accounts.”
Inusah Fuseini
Determination of Cecilia Dapaah’s case
Commenting on how long the OSP can legally freeze the assets of Cecilia Dapaa, Mr Inusah stated that the Special Prosecutor seized the cash pursuant to section 38(1a), which gives him he or his authorized officer the right to do so.
He noted that when that is done, he has seven days within the date of the seizure to go to court to confirm the seizure.
However, he indicated with respect to the freezing of the account, under section 38, he has within 21 days to confirm the freezing of the accounts.
“Under the 32(1a), if he seizes the cash, the assets which he believes is tainted property, he has seven days within which he goes to court to confirm the seizure. If he fails to prosecute that person within three months, he has to return the property.”
Inusah Fuseini
With respect to the legal avenues for Cecilia Dapaah in retrieving her properties and accounts, the former Tamale Central legislator revealed that she has to wait for seven days and if within the number of days provided in the law for prosecution to take place nothing happens, she can go back to the court to demand the return of the property.
In light of this, Mr Fuseini reckoned that investigations into the matter cannot be torpedoed and truncated intentionally, especially when it’s an investigation into a criminal trial.
He emphasized that the interest of the state is coterminous with the interest of individuals in this matter, and individuals want to know where Cecilia Dapaah got the money from.
“She must give reasonable, satisfactory and convincing account of how she came by the money. There are many factors to it – if it is business that she did, you want to know what taxes she paid on the money.
“Where money of such quantum is found in the house of a politically exposed person, it raises a prima facie case that the money is tainted property. Because Cecilia Dapaah is deemed to know that the house is not a safe place to keep money.”
Inusah Fuseini
Moreover, Mr Fuseini asserted that whatever considerations motivated the former sanitation minister to keep such huge amounts of money in her house could only be motivations that border on money laundering. As such, he noted that any investigator will start from the premise because “evidential burden” shifts to Cecilia Dapaah to disclose where she got the money from.
Failure to do so, Mr Fuseini stated, will result in confiscation of her properties to the state.
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