Ernest Addison

Ernest Kwamina Yedu Addison is a Ghanaian economist who was the 15th Governor of the Bank of Ghana, from 1 April 2017 to March 2025. His two terms covered the 2017 to 2019 banking sector clean-up, the COVID-19 shock and Ghana's 2022 debt crisis.

Education

He attended Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast and studied economics at the University of Ghana from 1982 to 1986. He took a master's degree in economics at the University of Cambridge (1987 to 1989) and a PhD in economics at McGill University in 1993, with a thesis on how sectoral policy incentives under structural adjustment affected the Ghanaian economy.

Early career

He joined the Bank of Ghana as an economist in 1994 and rose to deputy chief of the research department. He chaired an ECOWAS task force whose work led to the West African Monetary Institute, and was the institute's chief economist from 2000 to 2003. He then returned to the Bank of Ghana as director of research from 2003 to 2011, working under Governor Kwesi Amissah-Arthur. By 2012 he was a lead economist at the African Development Bank's Southern Africa resource centre in Pretoria.

Governor

In March 2017 President Nana Akufo-Addo nominated him to replace Abdul Nashiru Issahaku, and he took office on 1 April 2017. He raised banks' minimum capital and, between 2017 and 2019, revoked the licences of nine banks, starting with UT Bank and Capital Bank, as well as many microfinance and savings and loans companies. He defended the clean-up as necessary, saying some of the banks had operated like Ponzi schemes, and insisted that none of the revoked licences would be restored while he was in office. Akufo-Addo reappointed him for a second term in 2021.

His second term was dominated by the 2022 debt crisis. The Bank of Ghana reported a loss of GH¢60.81 billion for 2022, mainly from the government's domestic debt exchange and the fall of the cedi. On 3 October 2023 the NDC minority in Parliament led the #OccupyBoG march in Accra, demanding the resignation of Addison and his deputies over the losses and the cost of the bank's new head office.

Exit

After the change of government, he went on terminal leave on 3 February 2025 ahead of the end of his term in March 2025. Johnson Asiama succeeded him as governor.