Lawyers for the embattled former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah, have issued a 3-day ultimatum to the Multimedia Group to withdraw what they claim are false reports made against their client.
In the said letter, the lawyers state that Multimedia, through its JoyNews channel, had falsely reported on an application filed before by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) before the High Court, Financial Division.
They claim that although no specific amounts of money were mentioned in the Application, regarding the monies discovered in the Minister’s accounts, JoyNews publicshed information about the purported amounts, ascribing these bits of information to unnamed sources.
According to the letter, at about 12:30pm on August 10, JoyNews published a story titled “OSP tracks $5 million, finds GH¢48 million in Cecilia Dapaah’s Prudential Bank accounts,” in which they stated that their sources at the OSP had disclosed amounts of money in the frozen bank accounts as well as other monies that had been found in another account.
At about 2pm on the same day the lawyers said, JoyNews shared multiple stories titled “Joy News Prime Cecilia Dapaah Case: OSP tracks $5 million in total bank transactions over a period” and “JoyNews Today OSP finds $5 million and GH¢48 million in Cecilia Dapaah’s bank accounts” on YouTube.
The Minister’s lawyers maintain that not only did the OSP not disclose any amounts found in their client’s accounts, but the assertion that these accounts contain $5 million and GH¢48 million is false.
They note further that even after the OSP had rebutted and dispelled claims that it had revealed any specific amounts of monies found their client’s bank accounts in a post made on one of its verified social media handles (Office of the Special Prosecutor-Ghana, @ospghana) at about 4pm of that same day, JoyNews continued to post material alluding to the false statement that $5 million and GH¢48 million had been found in the Minister’s bank accounts.
A development that leads them to conclude that Multimedia’s reportage is based on “purported reliance on information from unidentified sources and a reckless disregard for truth and accuracy,” and “actuated by malice and a deliberate/reckless attempt to impute wrongdoing to our client contrary to the constitutional and time-honoured principle of the presumption of innocence she is legally entitled to.”
The letter stresses that published figures about the sums in the bank accounts of Madam Dapaah are false and ends by demanding a retraction and apology within three days, lest they bring up legal action against the media outfit.