Re-organization of Twitter continues with a sack of staff at its only Africa office in Ghana

Twitter has laid off almost all of its employees in Ghana, where its only office in Africa is located.

According to Twitter's email, which the BBC saw, the company "is re-organizing its operations as a result of a need to reduce costs."

The layoffs were a part of a worldwide purge of employees introduced by Elon Musk, the new Twitter boss.

When the office in Ghana was opened last year with fanfare, Twitter said it wanted to be more  "immersed" in African conversations.

In an April 2021 announcement, Twitter stated that it decided to create its first office in Africa in Ghana to "be more immersed in the rich and vibrant communities that drive the conversations taking place every day across the African continent".

Elon Musk

Twitter at that time had praised Ghana for "free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet" and the news was welcomed and described as " excellent" by Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo.

A staff member who wished to remain anonymous told the BBC that, unlike in some other countries, no redundancy was granted but that they would still receive their regular salary until the beginning of the next month when their contract would expire.

Elon Musk tweeted on November 4 that employees had been "offered 3 months of severance" after word of widespread staff layoffs began to circulate globally. It was unclear what office he was referring to, though.

"It's very insulting," the anonymous Ghana employee said. Under local law, laid-off staff must be paid redundancy and should be given three months' notice, as opposed to under a month in the case of the Ghanaian employees who have been told the "last day of employment will be 4 December 2022".

"From the mail to the lack of next steps to the tone of the letter. Just everything. Ridiculously insulting," the staff member said.

After being denied access to work emails, Ghana employees received messages in their personal accounts informing them that their contracts has ended.

The Ghanaian Twitter office, according to the BBC, had just under 20 employees working in a variety of capacities, including editorial, marketing, and curation.

In addition, the letter from Twitter management warned employees not to "contact or deal with any customers, clients, authorities, banks, suppliers or other employees of the Company and are required to inform the Company if contacted".

The letter also told staff to wait until their final day of employment with the company to start any other jobs or engagements, while wishing them luck in all of their future endeavors.

The new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk has been firing staff worldwide, saying that he had "no choice" but to reduce the company's workforce because the business was losing more than $4 million (£3.5 million) every day.

Media and Entertainment