The money is fine. The bouquet is not.
On 5 October 2026 the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Police Service arrested seven people in Accra for making money bouquets and money cakes from cedi notes. The arrests happened at different locations across the city. The BBC and GBC Ghana Online report they were all women, running the business of making these for weddings, birthdays and graduations.
The warning was already there. On 14 July 2026 the Bank of Ghana published a notice (Notice No. BG/GOV/SEC/2026/17, signed by the Secretary of the Bank) saying that spraying cedi notes at events, scattering them, dancing on them, and using them to make bouquets, cakes, jewellery or fingernail designs are offences under the Currency Act, 1964 (Act 242). The practice has been part of Ghanaian celebration for years. The letter of the law was never a secret. What changed in October is that the police started arresting under it.
The eight practices the Bank of Ghana names
In the order the notice puts them. The first four are things people do at weddings, outdoorings and birthdays all the time. The state is now saying each one is a prosecutable act.
- Spraying or showering cedi notes at an event. "Throwing" or "showering" money, the notice calls it. The classic wedding move. Illegal.
- Using notes for decoration. Money bouquets, money cakes, jewellery made from folded notes, fingernails with notes stuck to them. The practice behind the arrests. Illegal.
- Scattering notes on the ground, dancing on them or stepping on them. Illegal.
- Tearing, crumpling, staining, soiling, defacing, melting or mutilating a note. Illegal.
- Writing on a note. Cutting, altering, or defacing a note or a coin. Illegal.
- Using a picture of the cedi in a design or an advert without the Bank of Ghana's permission. Illegal.
- Buying or selling a coin for more than its face value. Illegal.
- Any other unconventional use that affects the integrity of the currency. The catch-all.
Spraying money at a Ghanaian wedding is older than the Bank of Ghana. The state's reading is that the Currency Act, 1964 says what it says, and spraying falls inside it. The seven arrests were specifically for the commercial practice: shops and small businesses making bouquets and cakes to sell. The arrested are the makers. By the letter of the notice, the sprayer, the one who pins a note on the celebrant, and the one who sticks notes to a cake are all inside it too.
Catch
The Bank of Ghana's notice says offenders can be arrested, prosecuted, fined or jailed. It does not state a specific fine or a specific prison term for this offence. The Currency Act, 1964 is the statute it leans on; the published notice does not quote the exact section or the exact penalty.
The fight is not over
On 6 October 2026, Dr Hassan Ayariga, founder of the All People's Congress, publicly challenged the Bank of Ghana to cite the specific provision of the law being broken when the notes are not torn, defaced or damaged. His argument is that a gift of undamaged money, in a bouquet or anywhere else, is not defacement. The arrests may not survive if the Currency Act, 1964 is argued before a court. That is a court case, not a prediction. For now, the Bank of Ghana's reading is what the police are acting on, and seven people are in it.
Nigeria did this first with the naira. The Central Bank of Nigeria read spraying as abuse of the currency and the courts went with it. Ghana's version is the same play in a different voice.
What to tell your family before the next event
The sender in the UK is not the one at risk. The money you send is legal to send and legal to receive. If it arrives in an MTN Mobile Money wallet, in an AT Money wallet or in a bank account, there are no notes to spray, decorate or arrest anyone for. Most UK-to-Ghana transfers already arrive that way. The Ghana guide has the current picture on which app pays in cheapest.
The person at risk is the sister at home doing the arrangements, and the aunty with the florist shop who makes the bouquets to order. If your family is in either role, the next envelope goes with one plain line in the WhatsApp group before the event.
Tip
Something like: "The money is fine, but please no money bouquets, no cake with cedis on top, and no spraying. The police have been arresting people in Accra for it and I do not want anyone caught up in it." Short, no lecture, no telling anyone how to run their wedding. Just the news and the line that keeps a loved one out of a cell.
If your family still wants the gift to feel like a gift, there is no law against a sealed envelope of crisp notes handed to the bride and the groom. There is no law against a mobile-money top-up with a message. The practice the state has gone after is the one that lives on Instagram: cedis arranged for a photograph, cedis stuck to a cake, cedis sprayed in a video. A plain gift of money is still a plain gift of money.
The money you send does not change. What your family does with it when it arrives has, for now, a bigger consequence than it did last month.
Corrections
None so far. If we get something wrong, the fix is dated here.