The Minority in Parliament says the police has agreed with them, to go ahead with the planned demonstration against top Bank of Ghana (BoG) officials, scheduled for September 5, 2023.
The Deputy Minority Leader, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, disclosed this to journalists in Accra yesterday, after the Minority held a closed-door meeting with the Accra Regional Police Command, yesterday, in Accra.
This followed invitation of the Command to the minority, to discuss the impending Minority demonstration.
Mr Buah said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority met the police to fashion out modalities for the planned demonstration against the alleged illegal printing of money by the BoG between 2021 and 2022 and the GH¢60 billion loss incurred by the BoG in 2022.
Present at the meeting, he said, were Ibrahim Ahmed, first Deputy Minority Whip, Mahama Ayariga, Bawku Central MP, Bernard Ahiafo, Akasti South MP, James Agalga, Bulsa North MP.
Some civil society organisations and former Chair of the Peoples National Convention (PNC), Mr Bernard Mornah, also attended the meeting.
Mr Buah said the NDC wrote to the police to inform them of the Minority’s impending protest and provided them with routes that would be used.
He called on Ghanaians and organisations to take part in the demonstration.
The Minority in a letter dated August 21, 2023, informed the police of the intended demonstration in consonance with the Public Order Act.
The letter said, “The purpose of this protest is to express our revulsion against the illegal printing of money (to the tune of GH¢80 billion) between 2021 and 2022 by the government, which has led to a hyper-inflation rate of 54.1 per cent in December 2022.
The letter signed by Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, Minority Leader, sighted by the Ghanaian Times, said “This singular act of the BoG has negatively impacted livelihoods and businesses and pushed about 850,000 Ghanaians into poverty in the year 2022 alone”.
It revealed that as representative of the Ghanaian people, the Minority in Parliament is disgusted by the “crass mismanagement and reckless mishandling of the affairs of the BoG, which resulted in loss of GH¢60.8 billion and a negative equity of GH¢55.1 billion in 2022, with its attended hardships on Ghanaians.
“We are further protesting the many acts of financial malfeasance by the Governor, his deputies and directors of BoG as contained in the 2022 Annual Report and Financial Statement of the Bank,” according to the statement.
It said the protest would end at the frontage of the BoG Headquarters on the Professor John Evans Atta-Mills High Street to demand the immediate resignation of the Governor, Deputy Governors and board of Directors.
The demonstration according to a letter would start from the frontage of Parliament House, through the streets of Accra through Osu Cemetery traffic light, Ministry of Finance, High Court Complex, Kinbu, Makola, Rawlings Park, Opera and end at the BoG.
BY ANITA NYARKO-YIRENKYI
