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The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has revealed that former Sanitation and Water Resources Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, has been cleared of direct corruption allegations following a joint investigation with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
According to the OSP’s July 2025 Half-Year Report, the nearly seven-month-long inquiry, which began in July 2023, found no “direct and immediate evidence of corruption” regarding the large sums of cash and valuables seized from Ms. Dapaah and her associates. However, investigators uncovered “strong indications of suspected money laundering and structuring” — matters that fall outside the OSP’s jurisdiction.
In January 2024, the OSP referred the case to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) for further investigation. EOCO, however, returned the docket in May 2024, arguing that money laundering is a collateral offence that must be tied to a substantive predicate offence, which it could not establish at the time.
A fresh twist emerged in May 2025 when EOCO, under new leadership, requested the docket back for a renewed review. The OSP subsequently forwarded a duplicate file on May 29, 2025, expressing its readiness to fully support EOCO in pursuing the money laundering aspects of the case.
The Cecilia Dapaah scandal, which gained public attention after the OSP froze her bank accounts and seized huge cash sums from her residence, remains one of Ghana’s most high-profile corruption probes in recent years. While corruption charges have been ruled out, her financial dealings are still under scrutiny for possible money laundering violations.
