A large number of individuals had taken to the streets of Ghana’s capital Accra on Tuesday, October 3rd to demand for the central bank governor’s removal from what they have called “a mismanagement of the economy during the worst debt crisis seen in a generation.”
The protests are the latest in the display of anger of the citizens with the ever rising cost of living, joblessness and hardship in one of West Africa’s biggest economies.
These are not the first protests to he held in the country however, as a related multi-day demonstration had been held in the capital in August.
The crowd marched to the central bank’s head office under the watch of riot police, blasting reggae from speaker devices and demanding for Ernest Addison, the bank governor together with his two deputies to resign.
A lot of the protestors had been attired in red and black– the usual colours typically worn at funerals.
Ghana’s central bank had in July revealed a record loss of 60.8 billion cedi ($5.3 billion) in 2022, majorly due to debt restructuring.
Ghana, a gold, oil and cocoa producing country, has finalised a deal with the International Monetary Fund—IMF, for a $3 billion, three-year loan program to assist in redress the situation. Debt restructuring had been one of the conditions included in the deal to obtain those funds.
