A shot in the ministerial butt. The complaint by the Minister of Sanitation and Water Affairs of Ghana, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, of a robbery by two domestic workers in her home, in Accra, the capital of the country, has ended with the resignation of the veteran politician, 68 years, and his arrest by the police, who accuse him of corruption.
At the center of the controversy is a booty of Pantagruelian proportions. After receiving the minister’s complaint, the police investigated the theft and discovered a fortune that raised suspicions and caused a political storm in the country. According to court documents made public last week, the two domestic workers stole a huge sum of cash from Dapaah’s house – one million dollars, 300,000 euros and 350,000 Ghana cedis (about 23,000 euros in change) – in addition to dresses, luxury handbags valued at 32,000 euros and more than 86,000 euros in jewelry.
On Saturday, just a few hours after the details of the theft became known, Minister Dapaah resigned from the position in a letter to President Nana Akufo-Addo in which she “emphatically” denied the veracity of the published figures which, according to her version, “ they do not correctly represent” the stolen amount that she and her husband reported to the authorities.
Despite the fact that after the resignation the Ghanaian president Akufo-Addo thanked the “loyalty and devotion” of a politician with more than 25 years of career and who had been in office for five years, the Ghanaian judiciary reacted quickly and without her pulse trembling: on Monday the minister was arrested “on suspicion of corruption and crimes related to the illicit possession of large amounts of money”.
The arrest of one of the three women in the Ghanaian cabinet takes place at a time of sadness in the African state, punished by the worst economic crisis in years that has pushed the Government to ask for a loan of 3 billion dollars from the Monetary Fund international In addition, the local currency, the cedi, has lost value in recent months and the Ghanaian executive has publicly criticized wealthy elites hoarding dollars and damaging the Ghanaian currency.
John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana from 2012 to 2017, as well as the leader of the main opposition party in next year’s presidential elections, brought together the social anger that has triggered the affair in recent days. “It’s scandalous! Even if the money was obtained legally, why did he keep millions of bills in his house? Will [President] Akufo-Addo ever appoint a public official who will set a good example in his administration?”
According to the police, the two domestic workers committed the robbery, or series of robberies, last year and soon after began a life train without brakes. One allegedly bought a three-bedroom house on the outskirts of Accra, along with several household appliances, and gave her boyfriend money to buy two cars. The couple also rented an apartment in another city and a warehouse. The other worker investigated as an accomplice would have bought a three-bedroom house with the stolen money.
Police believe one of the women acted as an informant and tipped off the other accused where the money and valuables were, as well as the times of day the house was empty or almost unwatched.
According to the minister’s complaint, the suspicions about the two workers go back to October, when her husband, Daniel Osei Kuffour, heard a strange noise from his bedroom when he was returning home. When he went to see what was going on, he found one of the accused workers hiding behind the door. In the following days, the couple found that several valuables, in addition to money, had been stolen from the drawers and cupboards.
At this point there is one thing that does not sit well with the investigators: since that strange meeting with the employee and despite the fact that they had realized the theft, it took the minister and her husband up to seven months to formally present the report to the police.