CDD-Ghana Fellow and Director for the Democracy Project, Dr John Osae Kwapong, has urged the Minority in Parliament to refrain from conflating the recent dismissals at the Bank of Ghana (BoG) with politically motivated terminations across the public sector.

Speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show, Dr Kwapong advised the Minority to consider the specific circumstances surrounding the BoG dismissals before grouping them with other cases allegedly tied to a post-election purge.

His comments follow a press conference by the Minority on 24 June, during which they strongly criticised the termination of over 100 BoG employees. The opposition group described the action as unconstitutional, unlawful, and procedurally flawed.

According to the Minority, the dismissed workers were lawfully recruited, fully vetted, and had already been contributing meaningfully to national development. They attributed the terminations to a directive issued by the Chief of Staff on 11 February 2025, which instructed the revocation of all public sector appointments made after 7 December 2024.

“This directive is wholly unconstitutional and unlawful,” the Minority said. “No such directive has legal authority, and institutions must not act on political whims.”

However, Dr Kwapong challenged this framing, stressing the need to differentiate between political dismissals and performance-based contract decisions.

“From the news reports I have read in full, this particular Bank of Ghana case is not part of the directive issued by the Chief of Staff concerning all persons hired after the December 7 election,” he noted.

“What I understand is that this situation relates to the conclusion of a six-month probationary period, which the Bank of Ghana says these affected employees did not satisfactorily complete, preventing their transition from probationary status to a more permanent appointment.”

Dr Kwapong cautioned that if these facts hold, then the BoG terminations must be treated as employment decisions tied to performance rather than as part of a politically motivated retrenchment.

“If this concerns work contracts and employee performance, it should be handled differently from cases perceived as politically motivated firings. It is important for the Minority to make that distinction and not group these situations together,” he stressed.