Thousands of Ghanaians took to the streets of Accra, the country’s capital city, in protest, to demand the removal of Ernest Addison, the central bank governor, over a regressing economy.
The protesters who marched through Accra on Tuesday also demanded that Maxwell Opoku-Afari and Elsie Addo Awadzi-Addison’s deputies, be fired.
Similar protests rocked Ghana last month with the latest as a show of frustration with the country’s constant rising living costs.
A 2023 World Bank report showed that a combination of domestic imbalances and external shocks in the previous year led to macroeconomic challenges in Ghana.
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The year was marked by currency depreciation, rising inflation, and tumbling investor confidence.
According to the report, pre-existing fiscal vulnerabilities such as mounting debt burden, a rigid budget weakened by high energy sector costs and chronically low public revenues, were deepened by difficult global economic conditions and led the country into a “full-blown crisis”.
Also in July 2022, Ghana’s central bank posted a record loss of 60.8 billion cedi mostly due to debt restructuring.
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The West African nation which is one of the largest gold exporting countries on the continent has sealed a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $3 billion facility — a three-year loan programme to help redress the situation.
In September, Addison, who has been the central bank governor since 2017, said improved economic indicators would soon lead to higher incomes and purchasing power, but none of that has pacified the millions of Ghanaians who are still struggling to make ends meet.
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