The Special Prosecutor is preparing to go to court to seek confirmation from a judge to enable the office hold on to the seized money and frozen accounts of former Water and Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Dapaah.

The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, invoked its powers to take custody of cash it seized from Mrs. Dapaah, only days after the High Court in a ruling last week asked the office to return same.

Although the OSP in a statement said it had complied with the order, it said investigations were still ongoing and believes the money in question is tainted which calls for keeping custody of the amount.

Lawyer and former Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Inusah Fuseini says the burden is now on Cecilia Abena Dapaah to establish the source of the money.

“What he says is that there are conflicting accounts that give you an indication of the justification for the re-seizure, that during investigations, Cecilia Dapaah gave conflicting accounts of how she came by the money.”

“Investigations cannot be torpedoed, you can’t truncate intentional investigations into a criminal conduct.”

“She must give a reasonable, satisfactory and convincing account of how she came by the money,” he explained.

He added that the only option Madam Cecilia has is to wait for a number of days and if nothing is done during that period, she can return to court to ask that her properties be returned to her.

“The remedy she has is to wait for seven days and if nothing happens, she goes to court to demand the return of the properties to her,” he said.

Meanwhile, 18-year-old Patience Botwe, the lead suspect in the theft case which allegedly occurred in the house of Cecilia Dapaah, has filed for another bail at the Circuit Court in Accra as previous requests have all been turned down.

However, this recent bail request was unsuccessful as it was challenged by an Assistant State Attorney, Akosua Agyemang, who filed a formal response as to why the accused should be denied bail in court.

Miss Botwe’s counsel, Nana Addo Asrifi, notified the court of the application and prayed for a short adjournment to enable them to respond to the prosecution's affidavit in opposition to the bail.

Patience Botwe’s alleged boyfriend, Benjamin Sowah has also been denied bail by the court presided over by Afia Owusuaa Appiah.

According to the court, his bail request was rejected due to his role in the alleged theft case and the manner in which he was arrested in Tamale. The court says it was not inclined to grant him bail at this stage of the case.