Minority to go ahead with routes for BoG protest
The Minority Caucus in Parliament has insisted that it will use the routes it gave to the Police for its September 5, 2023, protest march to back their demand for the immediate resignation of the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Ernest Addison, and his two deputies.
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The group at a meeting with the Police last week proposed the route for the protest as follows: from the frontage of Parliament House through the Osu cemetery traffic light, Ministry of Finance, High Court Complex, Kinbu, Makola, Rawlings Park, Opera Square to the Bank of Ghana.
However, the police, in a statement after a closed-door meeting with the Minority said it had drawn the attention of the organisers to the fact that using the selected routes for the demonstration might endanger public order and public safety, among others.
The statement which was signed by the Head of the Public Affairs Unit of the Accra Regional Police Command, Superintendent of Police Juliana Obeng, said the organisers were to change the routes and destination of picketing in the interest of public order, public safety and running of essential services.
Minority
However, in a statement issued and signed by the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, dated August 28, 2023, the Minority insisted that they would go ahead with the protest march on the routes it gave to the police earlier.
The Minority argued that they had successfully and peacefully marched through those routes that the police had rejected before with their aid , and that the police did not have sufficient and compelling grounds to refuse them this particular protest march on those routes.
It, therefore, called on the Police to honour their constitutional duty along the routes they had designated for the protest march, dubbed “#OccupyBoG”, on the date that they had informed the police and announced to the good people of Ghana.
“Your attempt to deny us an opportunity and terminate our #OccupyBoG protest at the Headquarters of the Bank of Ghana on the pretext that it is a “security zone" is untenable, troubling and unwholesome for the Ghana Police Service's motto of Service with Integrity,” it said.
“How is the Bank of Ghana Headquarters designated by the Police as a security zone and the Cedi House, another Bank of Ghana edifice that the Police proposed that we march through, not a security zone?
We do not want to believe that you are citing or hiding behind “security zone” to thwart our planned protest and for the police to shirk its constitutional duty of providing security for persons who desire to publicly manifest their revulsion and abhorrence at the central bank's reckless management,” it stated.
“Our constitution guarantees the right to protest and it is your constitutional responsibility to ensure that we do so along the routes we have chosen peacefully and securely and you must live up to your basic responsibilities,” it added.
“Our protest march is to back our demand for the immediate resignation of the governor of the Bank of Ghana and his two deputies.
They mismanaged the Bank of Ghana and illegally and excessively printed money between 2019 to 2022 in contravention of the Bank of Ghana Act, leading to a hyperinflation of 54.1 per cent.
This pushed an additional 850,000 Ghanaians from middle income into extreme poverty,” the Minority said.
Their reckless mismanagement of the Central Bank also resulted in a loss of GH¢60.8 billion, causing a negative equity of GH¢1 billion.
They also illegally wrote off a whopping GH¢48 billions of government's indebtedness as well as other acts of financial malfeasance by the governor, his deputies and directors of the Bank of Ghana as contained in the 2022 Annual Report and Financial Statement of the Bank,” the statement concluded.