The Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has expressed his disapproval of the street protest organized by the Minority caucus and called for a parliamentary approach to engage the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Ernest Addison.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu argued that instead of staging a street protest, the Minority could have invited Dr. Addison to Parliament to answer questions related to the new headquarters building and the GHS60.8 billion loss incurred by the bank. He emphasized that the protest prejudged the Governor and suggested that any motion moved by the Minority to summon Dr. Addison to Parliament would not receive support from the Majority side of the House.
“We are Members of Parliament; we could have invited the Governor to come and talk about the issues that are not clear to us. You go on a demonstration and organize a press conference against the man; then you come back to Parliament to move the motion [to invite him]. Do you want me to support that?” Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu stated during an interview with TV3.
He further noted that the protest indicated that the Minority had already made up its mind regarding the Governor’s actions, and it raised doubts about whether the Minority would be receptive to Dr. Addison’s explanations during a parliamentary session.
The Minority had called for Dr. Addison’s resignation, along with that of his two deputies, Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari and Elsie Addo Awadzi, citing mismanagement as the reason. Despite initially giving the three governors a 21-day ultimatum to resign, the Minority decided to take to the streets when the deadline passed. They accused the Bank of Ghana of constructing a new headquarters at a cost of over $200 million while recording financial losses and of writing off government debt and overprinting cash for government expenditures against the Bank of Ghana Act.
Dr. Addison, in response to the protest, stated that it was “completely unnecessary” and that neither he nor his deputies had any intention of stepping down. He also defended the decision to construct the new headquarters, explaining that it was made in 2019 when the bank was profitable and allocated some of its profits for the project.