Ghana’s Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah resigned on Saturday, July 23, 2023 following reports that her employees stole local and foreign cash reserves from her home last year.
Cecilia Dapaah hit the headlines on Friday after two former employees of her household appeared in court accused of stealing money and personal effects from the minister and her husband between July and October 2022.
But the press reaction to the million dollars, 300,000 euros and millions of local cedis allegedly stolen from Dapaah’s home sparked outrage against the minister on social media and calls for her resignation.
Many have questioned the origin of such sums of money in a country where some members of Nana Akufo-Addo’s government have been involved in corruption scandals.
Cecilia Dapaah faces critics
In her letter, the former Member Parliament of Ghana said the figures reported by the media do not accurately reflect what she and her husband reported to the police.
“The stories sought to suggest that I own various huge sums of foreign currencies and millions of Ghana cedis which have been stolen from my home. Whereas I can state emphatically that those figures do not represent correctly what my husband and I reported to the Police, I am very much aware of the import of such stories around someone in my position,” she wrote.
According to her, resigning was the right thing to do so as not to burden the government with her personal problems. In addition, with appeals to the special prosecutor to the attorney general through the police among others, the minister says she is ready to submit.
“I am resigning therefore because I do not want this matter to become a preoccupation of government and a hindrance to the work of government at such a crucial time… I intend to cooperate fully with all state agencies to enable them to fully establish the facts,” the document read.
In another letter from the Julbilee House, President Akufo-Addo accepted the resignation of the 68-year-old woman who has worked in his government since he took power in 2017.