Cecilia Dapaah saga: Tema MCE hits back at critics of President Akufo-Addo

The Metropolitan Chief Executive of Tema, Yohane Amarh Ashitey, has taken on critics who say they have issues with President Akufo-Addo’s response to the resignation of former Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah.

In response to the claim that President Akufo-Addo cleared the woman by expressing faith that she will come out of the investigations exonerated, the MCE said that view is myopic and mischievous.

“This is a woman that the President appointed as a Minister for the past several years, I do not think that if the President didn’t have faith in her he would have appointed her for so long,” Hon. Amarh Ashitey said.

The MCE was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a program by the Apostolic Church of Ghana in Tema.

According to him, it is that same faith that the president expressed in the woman when he said he was looking forward to her being exonerated by investigations.

“It doesn’t mean that the president is telling anybody to treat her as innocent; rather, this is the president’s way of saying that ‘I have so much faith in you that if it turns out that you are guilty I would be really disappointed.’”

The statement comes as Mrs. Abena Dapaah faces investigation over some USD1million that was allegedly stolen from her home by her housemaids.
According to media reports, the money lost also include over 300,000 euros and several millions of Ghana cedis.

However, the Minister has said that what is circulating in the public domain is nowhere close to the amount that was quoted in her cautioned statement with the police.

Immediately the issue hit the news headlines, the Minister came under public pressure to resign and when she did, president Akufo-Addo accepted the resignation.
According to Yohane Amarh Ashitey, the president’s prompt acceptance of the resignation is what should be the focus of the conversation.

“Obviously if the president wanted to exonerate his Minister, he wouldn’t have accepted her resignation in the first place,” Hon. Amarh Ashitey said.

Already, the former Minister is said to have claimed that US$800,000 out of the $1million belong to some family members.

The MCE urged the critics of the president to, “wait for investigations to run its course and see if president Akufo-Addo will exonerate the former Minister if she is found guilty.”