Ghana’s Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation Cecilia Abena Dapaah has said she will clarify “inconsistencies” in reports stating that more than $1.3 million was stolen from her home in the capital Accra.
The clarification will be made “in the coming days,” the minister said.
Allegations have swirled that Dapaah lost the money to her two nannies and their accomplices between July and October 2022.
The monies were in foreign and local denominations, Ghana News Agency reports. Dapaah reportedly lost $1 million, €300,000 and millions of Ghanaian cedis, totalling more than $1.3 million.
Cash kept at home
It is alleged that the minister and her husband, Daniel Osei Kuffour, had kept the money at their home in Abelempke, a northern Accra neighbourhood inhabited by the rich.
The reports emerged after Dapaah recently sued her nannies, Patience Botwe and Sarah Agyei, for allegedly stealing the money from her between July and October last year.
Botwe, Agyei and three other suspects, including a plumber, were arraigned in Accra on Thursday.
The nannies were also accused of stealing Dapaah’s clothes, jewellery, perfumes and handbags worth tens of thousands of US dollars.
Dapaah reportedly discovered that her money and other personal items were missing in June this year, prompting her to file a police report, which led to an investigation and the subsequent arrests of the suspects.
Bought property
Judge Susana Ekuful of the Accra civil court was told that Dapaah’s nannies used the money to buy property, including vehicles and a three-bedroom house in the northern Ghanaian town of Tamale.
One of the suspects, Agyei, was released on 1 million cedis ($86,260) cash bail because she is a new mother. Her four co-accused remain in custody ahead of plea-taking on August 2, 2023.
At least $46,260 of the stolen funds have been recovered, police said.
After reports of the theft surfaced, Ghanaian former president John Dramani Mahama took to Twitter to term the revelation “scandalous.”
“Even if genuinely acquired, why keep millions of hard currency at home?” he posed. Mahama will be seeking to reclaim the presidential seat on an African Democratic Congress (ADC) party ticket in the December 7, 2024 elections.
Mahama served as Ghana’s fourth president between 2012 and 2017.
