A renowned lawyer, Martin Kpebu has welcome the decision of the Special Prosecutor, Mr Kissi Agyebeng to hand over the case involving the former Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Dapaah to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO).
He said despite the skepticism among a section of Ghanaians that EOCO may not be able to do an independent investigation into the matter, the transfer of the case to it, offers the anti-corruption agency, an opportunity to prove the sceptics wrong.
“All government agencies, to the extent that they are funded by government, government has some influence. Even Martin Amidu said it. As special prosecutor, he said that President Akufo Addo is interfering too much.
So naturally, I will also join in that concern. And the concern is positive. Once people show they are apprehensive, then that is an incentive for the state institution, in this case EOCO, to prove us wrong. So, this should be an incentive for EOCO to prove us wrong. The lack of trust is positive, because the moment we all end up praise singing of a state institution, there is the incentive to be complacent. So, I see it as positive that people are vigilant and weary because of the context, and clearing agent issues,” he said on TV3’s Ghana Tonight show on January 25.
It would be recalled that on January 25, the Special Prosecutor, Mr Kissi Agyebeng, formally announced that his outfit has handed over the case to EOCO because, “The Office has determined that the crime borders largely on money laundering, which falls within the mandate of EOCO.”
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Mr Kpebu was quick to add though, that it is not every money laundering case that the EOCO can prosecute.
“Recently, the Supreme Court has been very clear about this jurisdiction of money laundering. The Supreme Court said Even the EOCO that the OSP has sent this case to, EOCO doesn’t have 100% mandate in all money laundering cases. EOCO’s mandate, in the recent Supreme Court ruling- Ex parte Ibrahim Malik, is that EOCO’s mandate to do money laundering cases is limited to cases in which the money is government money.
If you hear money laundering, it means there is a predicate offence. And a predicate offence is which offence was committed to get that money which is now going to be laundered. And when we say laundered, meaning washing- you’ve stolen money, you’ve gotten money from cocaine, you’ve gotten money from defrauding by false pretenses, name the crime. So, you’ve got money from a certain crime and now you want the money to look legitimate. So, the person brings the money to do real estate business and other businesses.
The thing is that EOCO can only investigate cases in which the crime that was committed involves government money. So far, Mr Agyebeng has not told us the predicate offence,” he explained.
The renowned lawyer therefore suggested that “Based on the Supreme court decision, it is safer that EOCO involves the police so that if it turns out that the matter is not for EOCO, because the police are involved, they take over quickly. Rather than EOCO does it alone and sees that the money is private, it’s not government money and it has to send it to the police.”
OSP refers Cecilia Dapaah’s case to Economic and Organised Crime Office | 3News
Mr Kpebu further proposed that “In future, it means that OSP has to bring in the other agencies. So that at every stage they know what is going on. So that if they take over the case, they don’t have to re-event the wheel.”