FBI joins OSP to investigate financial transactions linked to Cecilia Dapaah in USA
FBI joins OSP to investigate financial transactions linked to Cecilia Dapaah in USA | The Big Stories
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NewsTranscript
00:00 - Let's get into, let's quickly get into this.
00:02 And then I also, eventually, I also want to get into,
00:05 you know, Nya Honya Hutamaklu and General Nunumensa
00:10 have been speaking on the issue
00:12 of the state of affairs of Ghana.
00:14 I want us to get into that.
00:15 But before we do, Cecilia Dapa,
00:17 she is saying now that, I mean,
00:19 the processes are still ongoing,
00:21 and she is saying, her lawyers are saying
00:23 that the freezing of her bank accounts
00:26 is wreaking havoc on her, so to speak.
00:31 Excessive hardship is being brought to bear.
00:34 We heard about her deceased brother's account
00:37 and transactions going on,
00:38 and she says these are merely for the school fees
00:41 of his children and all of that.
00:42 But now we also hear that the Federal Bureau
00:45 of Investigation of the USA has been roped in,
00:48 collaborating with the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
00:52 Your take.
00:54 - Yeah, so first I will, for, I mean,
00:57 usually you would not want to wish anybody
01:00 going through what Cecilia Dapa is going through.
01:03 Obviously, if your accounts are frozen
01:08 and you have no access to your funds,
01:11 ordinarily it should have a toll on you,
01:13 unless maybe you are some super normal person.
01:16 So I can understand the basis for which
01:21 the lawyers of Cecilia Dapa had gone to court
01:25 to ask for an expedite, what do you call it?
01:28 - The process, right.
01:29 - The termination on the frozen accounts,
01:33 and then they seized funds.
01:35 So I can understand.
01:36 So to a very large extent, I think in my very humble
01:40 and uneducated mind, legal mind,
01:42 I think that it was a fair thing by the court
01:47 to say that, look, we want to hear this very quickly.
01:50 So that determination is made.
01:52 Two, I think that Cecilia Dapa should also not be worried.
01:57 You see, even as public officers,
01:59 we are all enjoying that before you even take up
02:02 your portfolio, your assets.
02:07 In fact, the NDC as a party ensured that
02:12 all parliamentary candidates in the last elections
02:14 declared their assets.
02:16 - Does that thing really work?
02:18 There has been talk about the fact that people
02:20 even present blank sheets of paper.
02:23 And honestly, fine, fine.
02:26 - How do you know that?
02:27 - I'm saying, that's why I'm saying from the grapevine.
02:30 But I'm saying technically, if a lot of these people
02:35 we see coming to government, in and out of government,
02:37 people who, some will tell you,
02:39 have never really done anything before entering politics,
02:42 and there are so many of them on different sides, okay?
02:45 And then you look at them before entry into government,
02:50 and you look at them a short while after.
02:52 - And they've become so posh.
02:53 - And you ask yourself, I mean, under normal circumstances,
02:57 even if the person we're making about,
02:58 let's even be charitable, 50,000 CDs a month,
03:01 which is not the salary of a minister,
03:03 or even a deputy, or an MP anyway,
03:06 I think it's only the president thereabouts
03:07 who has something in that range and device.
03:10 How possibly they could come up with such assets within,
03:16 I mean, you don't need to be a soothsayer.
03:18 You don't need to look into a crystal ball and see that--
03:21 - No, I agree with you.
03:22 - Something is amiss.
03:23 - I perfectly agree with you.
03:24 I perfectly agree with you.
03:25 - So the system is not working.
03:26 - Yeah, so the system actually is not working.
03:28 To say it's working is, I'm not,
03:29 my argument is not based on that.
03:31 I'm just trying to say that I was trying to make the point
03:34 that you see the OSP has, had written to her
03:39 to declare property and assets.
03:44 One of the cases that the OSP has sent to court now
03:49 is based on the fact that she had refused
03:51 to declare those assets when she was written to.
03:56 And I'm just saying that as a public officer,
03:58 the first thing you should have done
04:00 was that even assuming that office,
04:02 the law says that you should declare that.
04:04 So all you may have been doing now
04:06 will be to do an update of that.
04:08 She has refused to get into that deal.
04:13 But you see, when you have a country
04:15 that is suffering so much,
04:18 you have a country that people simply,
04:21 by virtue of the leadership of the current crop,
04:23 that includes you,
04:24 people basically have lost their life savings.
04:28 People simply cannot, people have lost their jobs.
04:32 People cannot pay for the fees of their kids.
04:35 Then suddenly you see that in your office,
04:38 oh sorry, in your house,
04:40 you have such huge sums of money
04:43 there.
04:44 And if what the OSP says,
04:47 and what we read in the newspaper
04:49 is anything to go by,
04:50 and I'm very careful because some of the parts
04:51 of the cases are in court
04:52 and I don't want to deal with those.
04:54 But if what we read in the newspaper
04:56 is anything to go by,
04:57 you have a situation where even some monies
05:00 that are found within your property,
05:02 you seem to say that you don't even know where--
05:05 - The OSP seemed to suggest,
05:07 and I found, I saw a curious article
05:10 by Elizabeth Oheni on it,
05:11 which I don't want to even get into,
05:13 but seemed to suggest that she had concealed
05:16 parts of them in different parts of the home.
05:19 But the other argument is that,
05:20 of course, when you have money,
05:22 you don't just leave it lying.
05:23 When you have helps at home and all of that,
05:25 you don't just leave it lying.
05:27 You put them in places where,
05:29 even if a robber came home,
05:30 they wouldn't have very clear access to.
05:33 - You have a situation where government officials
05:35 are telling all of us that we must,
05:37 as much as possible,
05:38 see how we can bank our monies.
05:41 We should send monies to them,
05:42 and there's always an encouragement to do that.
05:45 Then you have one of the principal officers of the economy
05:48 have such huge sums of money in the house.
05:53 Figures that are very,
05:55 they are scandalous to the poor man.
05:57 When you look at them,
05:57 when you look at the figures
05:58 that they are mentioning in the various homes.
06:01 And the Sicilia Daba's home becomes,
06:05 in my mind,
06:05 if you can find this with a,
06:08 what do you call it,
06:09 the house of sanitation and water resources minister.
06:13 What happens in most of the,
06:16 in my estimation,
06:19 the richer ministries.
06:20 What do you expect?
06:23 But of course,
06:24 you have a situation where
06:25 it tells you the level of corruption in this country.
06:33 It gives a bad name to everybody who is in public office.
06:38 Because now,
06:39 there was just a survey that was just done by,
06:42 what do you call it,
06:44 global info analytics.
06:48 On, after the Sicilia Daba's case,
06:50 as to whether Ghanaians,
06:52 sorry,
06:52 Ghanaians believed that politicians kept such huge sums
06:55 of monies in their homes.
06:57 And you'll be surprised at the figure,
06:59 huge figures in the,
07:02 what do you call it,
07:03 levels of about 70% that people believe that
07:05 politicians keep such huge sums of money.
07:08 Why do politicians keep those things?
07:10 Because they know that they will have to explain,
07:11 they have to put them in accounts.
07:13 They cannot explain those--
07:14 - So let me put that to you.
07:17 Why do,
07:17 since you're a politician,
07:18 why do you politicians do that?
07:20 - I've just told you.
07:24 The reason why politicians,
07:25 and I'm making this point very clearly.
07:26 - Broadly.
07:27 - Broadly.
07:28 The reason why,
07:29 you see because,
07:30 look, I give you a typical example.
07:31 Just recently,
07:33 I sold a vehicle of mine.
07:36 And then,
07:37 they had to pay it into my account.
07:39 - Right.
07:40 - What happened was that,
07:44 my bank called me,
07:46 and asked me,
07:47 they've just seen some sudden,
07:49 - Large sum of money.
07:52 - Some money deposited in my account.
07:54 And I say yes,
07:55 because,
07:56 what do you call it,
07:57 I had sold a property,
07:58 and that is what I put there.
08:00 - And that call came through because you're a pet,
08:02 a politically exposed person.
08:03 And some of us are even that.
08:05 So there are transactions immediately.
08:07 - So immediately,
08:08 I needed to send the documentation,
08:13 to my bank.
08:13 - Right.
08:14 - For to explain that,
08:16 what do you call it,
08:16 that transfer into.
08:17 - Which is what should be the case.
08:19 - Yes.
08:19 That should be the case.
08:20 Now the situation is that,
08:22 the reason why you have,
08:24 people like Cecilia Dapa and Co,
08:25 put such huge sums of money,
08:27 in their houses,
08:28 is that if it should go to bank,
08:30 how are they going to account for it?
08:32 How are they going to explain the expenditure?
08:33 How are they going to explain the sudden money,
08:35 that has been transferred into the thing?
08:37 So yes,
08:38 you will see this,
08:40 but it goes back to--
08:41 - But explanations have been given.
08:42 Some 200,000 was supposed to belong to,
08:45 is it a daughter or a niece or something?
08:47 - And there's no practical--
08:48 - That's what her husband said.
08:49 There have been explanations about,
08:52 the deceased brother's account,
08:55 still fund laying funds.
08:56 The explanations have been given.
08:57 - Yes,
08:58 so it is for the court to have a determination,
09:00 on those things.
09:01 And I do not want to,
09:02 I don't want to prejudge her before that.
09:03 But I'm just saying that,
09:04 the optics of it is not good.
09:06 The optics of it seem to suggest that look,
09:09 you people would have known you over a period.
09:11 You remember that they said his brother,
09:13 owned some X amount of money.
09:14 People from the neighborhood where he was a chief,
09:18 said that the man in his lifetime,
09:20 knew that the way they saw him,
09:22 just generally is the point you were making that,
09:25 you see the person that,
09:26 before the person goes into government,
09:29 suddenly you see that the person's,
09:31 circumstances would have changed so drastically.
09:33 They knew the circumstances of the man.
09:36 And they knew that,
09:37 looking at the circumstances in which he found himself,
09:39 some even say he was a cobbler or something like that,
09:42 to have such huge sums of money,
09:44 simply was not true.
09:45 So this is people who had stayed with them.
09:47 But it is for me not to,
09:48 it is not for me to make that determination.
09:50 I believe that,
09:51 but it goes back to speak on the issue of corruption.
09:56 That in this country,
09:58 CDD has indicated,
10:00 that if you look between,
10:02 between 2017 till now,
10:07 the annual amount,
10:09 sorry the amount we lose annually,
10:12 corruption,
10:13 about three billion dollars.
10:15 - It's somewhere between three and six billion.
10:17 - Yeah, dollars.
10:19 So if you have situations,
10:20 do you know how much three billion can do for one?
10:22 - Three billion is what we've gone to the IMF for?
10:24 - That's what I'm saying.
10:25 And so what it simply means,
10:27 is that even if as a country we even have this,
10:30 we may not need to be begging IMF
10:33 to meet some conditionalities
10:34 before we get 600 million dollars.
10:37 That is the implication of it.
10:39 And this government consistently has shown,
10:43 that the platform from which they came into government,
10:47 fighting corruption,
10:48 creating jobs,
10:49 and so let me use the word of fighting corruption,
10:51 they have woefully failed.
10:52 And the painful part of it is that,
10:54 you have a president,
10:56 who even before the determination of state,
10:59 what do you call it?
10:59 State institutions on this matter,
11:02 in accepting the resignation of the,
11:05 what do you call it?
11:06 The minister,
11:09 goes on to make a pronouncement,
11:11 that's him to suggest that,
11:12 oh I know you are not guilty and you will be freed.
11:14 - He said he was certain that her integrity
11:17 would shine through at the end.
11:19 - No, but as the head of the country,
11:23 as the CEO of corporate Ghana,
11:26 I'm just looking at it as Ghana as a corporate entity,
11:29 you should not be the one to make this statement.
11:31 I said no, it is consistent.
11:33 You know this attorney general's statement,
11:37 it's not the same thing.
11:38 You remember that when--
11:39 - When you say this attorney general thing,
11:41 the Fimpombo attorney,
11:43 when he says it is empty,
11:44 is that what you're referring to?
11:44 - Yeah, so when he said that it was,
11:46 not what the attorney general said was empty,
11:49 but if you look at the statement that was issued in April of,
11:53 what do you call it?
11:55 2019 by the president,
11:57 he had indicated very clearly that look,
12:00 that this was just a list of grievances.
12:02 He himself had cleared them up
12:04 before even the principal offices,
12:05 whether the CID or the, what do you call it,
12:07 even went into the case.
12:08 I'm just telling you that this is--
12:10 - Staying on that trajectory,
12:11 we have to go in a bit.
12:13 There's also Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamaklu.
12:16 He needs no introduction.
12:17 We've also had General Ndunu Mensah.
12:21 Both of them had a press conference.
12:23 And they had a bit to share.
12:25 I want to share with you part of what
12:27 Nyaho Nyaho Tamaklu, doctor says.
12:29 He says, he questions why important individuals
12:33 and organizations in the country are silent
12:37 and he's calling on citizens to speak truth to power.
12:41 And then, quoting him, he says,
12:44 individuals who constantly spoke truth to power
12:47 some years ago to emerge from the self-imposed,
12:52 I don't know what word this is,
12:53 to speak, to speak, exercise,
12:56 to speak to government we have now.
12:58 Well, the Otterbills, the Duncan Williams,
13:01 the Reverend Martins, and the Doug Hewitt Mills,
13:04 and the many civil society organizations
13:05 and crucial and critical journalists he bemoaned.
13:09 What do you think about that?
13:11 We're here doing critical journalism,
13:15 holding the feet of power to the heat
13:19 or the fire of accountability.
13:20 And we will do it to you too, as we have always done,
13:23 without batting an eyelid.
13:26 Why do you think we've got to this point
13:28 where they feel things are simply not going well
13:31 and those who should speak truth to power are not?
13:34 - Look, anybody who's a keen observer
13:38 of the political terrain in our country here
13:41 will know that things have changed.
13:43 And I say this on the strength of the fact that
13:49 if you look, let's just use the immediate past government.
13:53 That is the NDC.
13:54 If you look at the people who used to come out and speak,
13:59 and sometimes it was almost like directly just
14:03 insulting the intelligence of even the officers
14:05 who were there.
14:07 And suddenly, things have become worse.
14:09 And such people have lost their voices.
14:11 It becomes a problem.
14:12 You remember the famous Nyanzafua Oho,
14:14 you remember that famous--
14:15 - Nyanzafua Ohe.
14:16 - Ohe, Reverend Martins.
14:19 And he said that if you gave him the opportunity
14:23 in how many days he would have solved the power issues.
14:26 This was a man who was speaking out of ignorance,
14:29 because he didn't even know exactly what the situation was.
14:32 But was bold on using their church purpose
14:35 to really chastise government on that.
14:38 And suddenly, the same situation or even worse happened.
14:42 They are quiet.
14:44 And so I can understand--
14:45 - But that's a choice, right?
14:47 - Yeah, it's a choice.
14:48 And see, then, I then will have a situation to say that
14:52 any time the shoe is on the other foot
14:56 and you are speaking, I'm taking it serious,
14:57 you are a hypocrite.
14:59 Because if you are a person of principle,
15:00 and see, these people are listening to
15:03 because of what they represent.
15:05 They are listening to because they are the clergy.
15:07 And the thing that, look,
15:08 if you were to go into Duncan Williams' church,
15:10 or you were to go to Other Bell's church,
15:11 or you were to go to Reverend Martins' church,
15:13 this is a place where you have both NDC and PP,
15:16 they are all there, isn't it?
15:18 So these are people that people would think that
15:21 they will be speaking to the facts,
15:23 they will be speaking based on principles,
15:25 they will be speaking based on what they think is true.
15:28 But if you have a situation where you speak
15:30 as a result of patronage,
15:32 but these are people that obviously you would have not,
15:34 based on the conduct as we see now,
15:36 that these were people who were patronizing the,
15:38 what do you call it,
15:39 who are patronizing the current government,
15:41 and therefore have a challenge in criticizing them.
15:45 Even one of them had said that
15:46 he has stopped reading national news
15:48 and is now watching, how do you call it again,
15:51 this thing they do on TV,
15:53 Joe--
15:54 - Nagio.
15:54 - Nagio, you know those--
15:55 - Nagio Wild.
15:56 - Nagio Wild, that's what he's now watching,
15:58 animals and other things, he has stopped even.
16:00 Why have you suddenly found interest in watching those things
16:03 instead of being interested in, what do you call it,
16:05 national issues?
16:06 I'm just telling you that these are things
16:07 that are very unfortunate.
16:08 In terms of you were talking that you are being critical
16:11 because as a journalist,
16:12 you know that you have colleague journalists
16:14 who before 2017,
16:17 were almost, they were household names.
16:20 Even in this, you're stationed here,
16:22 they were household names,
16:24 but suddenly they cannot be found anywhere.
16:27 - I do not know.
16:29 - No, I am telling you, I have, you see,
16:31 that's what I'm making the point that we had journalists
16:34 who were almost everywhere talking and making,
16:38 and when they speak,
16:40 you would think that at the end of the day,
16:42 they will, if you give them,
16:43 if you were to give them this thing to say handle,
16:45 they will handle,
16:46 or maybe they were people of integrity,
16:48 and suddenly,
16:49 the Nigerians will say that when there's food in your mouth,
16:54 you don't talk, because that's not kateos, isn't it?
16:57 And you will see that that is happening,
16:58 and for me, where I find,
17:00 and let me also state very clearly
17:02 that there are very fine journalists.
17:04 There are very fine journalists who will really,
17:07 irrespective of who is involved,
17:09 as long as it is the question of,
17:10 when I've dealt with, I mean, for six, seven years,
17:13 me, I was dealing with journalists.
17:14 That was my job, and so I know some journalists,
17:17 and I've known their behavior over the period,
17:19 and I have known some journalists that suddenly,
17:22 they don't find anything. - Well, I'll tell you this
17:23 for a fact.
17:24 I see where you're going,
17:25 and I know of why exactly you're going on that trajectory,
17:29 but here, we try our hardest.
17:31 It's a human institution,
17:32 but we try our hardest to live by the tenets
17:34 of independent, fearless, credible--
17:37 - I see that you put, as part of your,
17:39 you put that as--
17:40 - That is what we aspire to.
17:42 - No, no, I see, and now I see, you see,
17:44 it would be wrong to use the same brush--
17:46 - To paint everybody. - To paint everybody.
17:48 So I agree with you, and that's why I've stated
17:50 that we have a good number of journalists
17:53 who simply do their work and do their work very well.
17:55 I have known, for example, that your station here
17:58 has come under serious criticism
18:00 because some of you have chosen
18:03 to hold the government to account.
18:05 I have seen those things.
18:07 Some of your hosts, I remember one of the days,
18:09 there was a press conference that was being done somewhere,
18:12 and surprisingly, when they listed a number of,
18:15 what do you call it, media houses,
18:18 I didn't hear your FM on it.
18:21 So I sent a message to the person, I said,
18:23 how come that your station is not part of this play?
18:25 Because I know that you have come under the heat
18:27 over some of these issues,
18:28 but that does not still defeat the point.
18:32 That says that there are a number of media houses
18:35 and journalists who, before 2017,
18:40 where household names, they could criticize,
18:43 they held the government accountable,
18:45 and it confirms what John Mahama said,
18:47 that if he did even 10%
18:49 of what this current government is doing,
18:51 he wouldn't have served his full time.
18:53 - Edward Bawa, thank you so much for joining us
18:55 this morning for, not for tea, but for a hot conversation.
19:00 - I didn't even get a cup of water even to drink.
19:03 - We'll take care of you.
19:05 We'll give you some awake, purified,
19:07 drinking water after this.
19:09 But--
19:10 (upbeat music)
19:12 you