The Minority Caucus in Parliament has strongly criticized the decision by Dr. Ernest Addison, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, to delegate the director of Security to accept a petition on his behalf from protesters of Tuesday’s OccupyBoG protest.
The minority described the decision by the Dr Addison as appalling and disappointing.
The leadership of the OccupyBoG protest were met by Wing Commander Kwame Asare Boateng and a host of the Bank’s leadership, who told the protesters that Dr Addison was in a meeting with a team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and was therefore unavailable to receive the petition.
“We were informed that you would come and present the petition, but as we speak, the governor is meeting the IMF team,” Mr Boateng told the protesters.
But the Minority Leader, Cassiel Ato Forson described the decision as disrespectful and refused to present the petition until the governor meets the minority leadership in person.
“It is very disrespectful not to receive the petition himself. Not even the deputy is here, and we never said we were going to present our petition to security, and that we would not give you the petition. Now that he has decided to disrespect us, we will not present our petition, and so we will go and come back again.”
Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa told Umaru Sanda Amadu in an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM on Tuesday that “We are going to continue with our demonstration. We are reconvening tomorrow.”
“Remember that this is a coalition. We have other political parties CPP, PNC, PPP and others. We have other CSOs AriseGhana, we have various branches of GPRTU and all of that. So it’s a grand coalition. We are reconvening tomorrow and we will look at the date.”
Mr Ablakwa similarly said they were appalled and disappointed by the decision of the governor and his deputies not to receive the petition in person.
“We were totally appalled. We felt disappointed when it wasn’t the governor who showed up to receive the petition,” he stated.
