⚠️ HRF CBDC ⛓️🪙 alert from HRF for Ghana (27-FEB-2024)

🗝️ℹ️ (Key Information)

CBDC Status: Pilot

CBDC Launch: n/a

CBDC Model: n/a

CBDC Issued: n/a

Inflation Rate: 31.26%

One-Sentence Summary:

Ghana's imminent launch of CBDC, the e-Cedi, raises pressing concerns about human rights and civil liberties in light of the country's history of corruption and censorship.

- ✅ 🇬🇭 is set to introduce the e-Cedi, its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), though economic instability forces delays in the launch.

- ✅ The concept of a CBDC was endorsed by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia in 2021, who urged African governments to adopt digital currencies while subtly distinguishing CBDCs from cryptocurrency.

- ✅ 🇬🇭's CBDC launch, initially planned for 2022, was postponed in response to high inflation rates, as stated by the Bank governor, Ernest Addison.

- ✅ The Bank of Ghana published a report detailing the motivators behind the CBDC, which include countering the rise of cryptocurrency, digitizing the economy, promoting financial inclusion, and preparing for future regulations.

- ✅ News surfaced in 2023 that the Bank of Ghana had completed its CBDC pilot but further delays ensued due to ongoing economic instability.

- ✅ Vice President Bawumia unveiled new plans to launch a CBDC in 2024, stating potential benefits such as combating corruption, enabling transparency, easing tax collection, and deterring money laundering.

- ✅ Despite 🇬🇭 scoring 80 out of 100 on Freedom House's 2023 report, the country suffered attacks on freedom of expression and significant corruption which a CBDC could further aggravate.

- ✅ Freedom House and the U.S. Department of State reported increasing attacks on journalists in 2022, raising concerns that a CBDC could be used to financially isolate journalists critical of the government.

- ✅ Alarmingly, widespread corruption in 🇬🇭 resulted in more than $346 million of financial mismanagement in 2022. The prevalence of corruption casts doubt on government promises to limit CBDC surveillance, control or other risks, and raises suspicions about political favoritism in CBDC policies.

#Ghana #CBDC #BankOfGhana #HumanRights #FreedomOfSpeech #Corruption #EconomicInstability #DigitalCurrency #ECedi

Given the intertwined relationship between CBDCs and civil liberties, how can nations ensure that the advancement of digital currencies does not compromise the fundamental freedoms and rights of its citizens? Please share your thoughts and perspectives on this topic.

Disclaimer: This is an AI-generated summary of the original text from HRF, forigve fuck-ups plox. If you find it useful, ⚡ the Tracker Bot because the AI and Cloud bits are not free to run.

Source of data: https://cbdctracker.hrf.org/home (npub1zhqcda52mrvcc0vkwegwsp5xtpk6l6x5kqx85f06tu9lw5h6xx0scch0dw)

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