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Man arrested for attempting to kill himself over economic hardship

A young man believed to be in his late 30s has been reportedly arrested after he attempted to kill himself over the prevailing severe economic hardship.

Handcuffs (IndependentNG)

The incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon at Kasoa CP in the Awutu Senya East Municipality where the suspect identified only as Yayah reportedly climbed an MTN mast to commit suicide.

Reports say some bystanders spotted him climbing the telecom mast, and tried to talk him out of the decision but he ignored them and proceeded.

It took efforts by some residents to rescue Yayah and hand him over to the police.

Adomonline.com reports that the suspect attributed his attempted suicide to the general economic hardship in the country.

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This incident comes just a few weeks after a young man identified as Kakra was electrocuted to death after climbing an ECG high-tension pole at Kasoa Galilea.

According to eyewitnesses, the man, he had complained about general economic difficulties and life’s struggles.

As he refused to rescind his decision despite efforts by residents to convince him, they called the police to the scene to help calm the situation but it still didn’t work.

He stayed on the high-tension pole for a few hours while the Police and residents looked on helplessly.

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Sadly, at around 5 pm, Kakra was seen swinging from one of the poles and a few minutes later got electrocuted.

His death sparked reactions from many people including former President John Dramani Mahama who took to his social media pages to call on Ghanaians to remain calm and not think of suicide as a solution to the unbearable economic hardship.

“I returned from a trip to the sad news of Kakra who electrocuted himself. Levels of hardship in Ghana are dire; the worst in 3 decades. But suicide is never an answer. Even in the darkest night, there’ll come dawn. The sun will rise again. Let's be each other’s keeper & keep hope alive,” Mahama wrote.

Prices of goods and services have increased and continue to skyrocket due to what analysts refer to as galloping inflation and the depreciation of the Ghana cedi against the US dollar and other major trading currencies.

Ghana’s economy has been experiencing a downturn, with the government being unable to service both domestic and external debts, whiles it can’t also borrow from external sources due to the loss of investor confidence.

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All the major internationally renowned rating agencies - Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch have downgraded Ghana’s economy, with the Ghana cedi also being declared by Bloomberg as the worst currency in the world.

Things are looking gloomy and the government is only banking its hopes on a 3 billion dollar International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout which it is in talks with the fund for.

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