More than 40 passengers traveling from Takoradi in the Western Region to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region in Ghana, Africa were held up by five masked and armed robbers late Sunday night. One passenger named Ekua said that the VIP bus identified as GT 5795-16 the Abenbebon Station at Apremdo, Takoradi at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday.
Ghana News reported that in the early hours of Monday, five African bandits ambushed and robbed the passengers of their belongings. Ekua shared that the robbery happened at about 3:30 a.m. on Monday, February 21.
She said, "About five armed robbers with rifles and other weapons attacked us and made away with our monies and other belongings. All of them were wearing masks."
But a peculiar thing had happened after the African bandits robbed the bus passengers. Ekua shared,
"After the robbery, they asked us to pray for them because it was not their will to stop vehicles on the highway and rob passengers of their belongings but the system has compelled them to do so."
Another victim of the African bandits said he was a driver who was heading out to purchase an engine for his vehicle in Kumasi. Last week, his mobile money phone was stolen by a separate group of armed robbers at Kintampo, so he decided to carry his money on his person. However, he was robbed again, this time by the African bandits who asked for prayers because the "system" made them do it.
One victim of the African bandits lost 8,500 Ghanaian Cedi, which is equivalent to about $1,200, while the driver, Agya Owusu, lost GH¢3,400 or about $500. Owusu reported that nothing could have been done to prevent the robbery in the hands of the African bandits who also asked for prayers.
Not the Bee reported that such robberies were "depressingly common along some of the highways of West Africa." Following the COVID pandemic, the poverty rate in Ghana has appeared to increase from 25% to 25.5% in 2020, the World Bank reported.
Ghana's finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta recently expressed displeasure over the response of developed countries' and multilateral institutions' to the COVID pandemic's financial impact on poorer countries such as Ghana, the Financial Times reported. He claims that the response was inadequate and that they have ignored the concerns of the governments and private sectors. He alleged that the debt service suspension initiative or DSSI failed to take into account the views of developing countries or private sector lenders, causing the DSSI to refrain from reducing the amount of debt owed.
"The west should hang its head in shame," Ofori-Atta remarked. "There was a complete distance between the resources available and what was applied [beyond advanced economies] to a problem that was global."
Ofori-Atta urged leaders to rethink the global financial architecture by the World Bank, saying, "We need to seriously evaluate whether the rules laid down [then] are the most appropriate going forward."
Ghana is populated by up to 30.4 million people, 43% of which live in rural areas. 13.3% of people in the country live on less than $1.90 per day, Opportunity International reported.
