Minority Enquires About Right Time to Submit Removal Petition to BoG Governor

The Minority in Parliament has written to the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Ernest Addison seeking appropriate time to hand over their petition for his resignation and that of his two deputies.

In a letter dated December 12, 2023, Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minority leader, urged him to set the date and time for the petitions to be handed over to him in person.

“We, therefore, write to request your availability at the premises of the Bank of Ghana head office for the Honourable Members of the Minority Caucus in Parliament to hand over our petition to you personally.

“Kindly inform us by Monday, 18h December 2023, a date and time convenient to you for us to present our petition to you at the Bank of Ghana head office,” a portion of the two-page letter read.

Background
The Minority in Parliament was joined by Civil Society Organizations (CSO), Progressive Forces as well as thousands of protesters on October 3 to demand the resignation of top officials of the Central Bank including Governor Addison. This was after they defied an ultimatum to resign in August.

The call sprung from what the groups alleged was an illegal printing of about GHC 80 billion between 2021 and 2022 by the Central Bank.

Additionally, they registered their disapproval at the reported GHC 60.8 billion loss incurred by the Bank in 2022 which has resulted in over GHC 50 billion in negative equity.

The protest though peaceful, was short of expectations as the Governor failed to show up for the petition of the protesters.

He sent out a man who identified himself as Kwame Asare Boateng, the Director of Security at the BoG to do it on his behalf.

According to him, Mr Addison was in a meeting with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and could not avail himself for it- an excuse that infuriated the leadership to return home with the petition.

Ato Forson, deemed it as a disrespect to the people of Ghana as he insisted on handing the petition out to him in person.

“We will not present our petition. We will go and come back again. We will come back again. We will come back and demand to see him in person. The crowd you’ve seen is just the beginning…If he thinks that the IMF is more important than the people of Ghana, {we will make him know} he is here because of the people of Ghana. We will come after him. Until we see him, we not stop.”

Later in an interview with Central Banking, Dr Addison likened the protest to hooliganism.
He indicated that the Minority in Parliament who spearheaded the demonstration could have used the right channels to deliver their concerns but overlooked them all for hooliganism.

“The demonstration yesterday was completely unnecessary. The Minority (MPs) in Parliament have many channels to channel their grievances in civilised societies, not through demonstrations in the streets as hooligans.”