The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Cape Coast South Constituency, Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, has categorically stated that the monies stolen from former Sanitation Minister Cecilia Dapaah’s home is “ill-gotten wealth”.
He says she would have deposited the money at the bank if it was legally acquired.
“We should stop this kind of spin and supporting things that are not defensible,” Mr Ricketts-Hagan noted on TV3‘s The Keypoints on Saturday, August 5 when the matter on the stolen monies came up for discussion.
“We can’t defend it. This money is an ill-gotten wealth and that’s why it didn’t get to the bank.”
The discussion follows an instruction by the Attorney General to the police to investigate the owners of the monies as Madam Cecilia did not mention any owners in her initial statement to the police.
But the former Deputy Finance Minister bemoaned the hoarding of such huge amounts when the country is struggling to balance its international reserves with foreign exchange.
“It is so suspicious. She couldn’t go to bank obviously because questions will be asked as to why she is putting in such money especially if the money was not obtained the right way. Then she decides to keep it at home and now house helps are now flooding the foreign exchange market because of the money they have taken from people like Madam Dapaah’s house .
“It is sickening and it doesn’t look well on us politicians.”
He said even if the money was obtained legally “it was not right for a minister of state to have that much cash, sitting in her house. It is simply unacceptable”.
Questioning such assertion by the NDC lawmaker, Alfred Kojo Thompson, a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) it is unfair to call such monies ill-gotten when the matter was reported to the police.
“When we say that someone can’t go to the bank because it is ill-gotten wealth, in that same instance then the person couldn’t have gone to the court at all or report to the police.
“If she knows she has to account for it and say this money, I didn’t get it on the right footing, then why will she move to the banks?”