Google writes to Ghana over last Friday’s Cedi glitch

Online giant Google has written to Ghana over last Friday’s glitch which saw the Cedi to dollar rate weighing as much as four times the accurate figure.

In a statement to the Finance minister, google said: ‘We always aim to provide people with the most relevant, useful information to help them to make the right decisions. But sometimes there are temporary issues that can cause people to have undesired experiences, like the one this past Friday. This was regrettable”

The statement however failed to apologise over the glitch.

The infraction caused massive panic among Ghanaians as Cedi was already struggling against the dollar in its accurate sense.

Below are details of the statement;

On Friday, 15th March, Google’s currency convertor widget displayed a cedi to dollar rate that was four times the actual value, alongside erroneous market rates of a number of currencies against the Ghanaian Cedi.

2. In a letter addressed to the office of the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta and the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Ernest Addison, Mrs Titi Akinsanmi, Google’s Head Public Policy & Government Relations, West and Francophone Africa said: “we are aware of the issue of inaccurate conversions for Ghanaian Cedi currency on Friday the 15th of March. This was caused by a minor glitch that was quickly fixed.”

3. The alleged “minor glitch” went viral on social media shortly after it appeared online, as Ghanaians sought to understand whether Google’s currency convertor’s ludicrous rates were true. Google did not specify if their system had been attacked by malware.

4. ‘We always aim to provide people with the most relevant, useful information to help them to make the right decisions. But sometimes there are temporary issues that can cause people to have undesired experiences, like the one this past Friday. This was regrettable,” said Mrs Akinsanmi.

5. Although she expressed regret over what has affected two other countries since the beginning of the year, Mrs Akinsanmi stopped short of apologizing for the glitch.