Bawumia picks up job in Canada

The Vice Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the 2008 elections, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has been appointed a Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Dr. Bawumia, a banker and economist with impeccable track record, was the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) until he was ordered to proceed on leave against his will by the Atta Mills administration and has since maintained a rather low profile.

He is widely acclaimed as one of Ghana’s finest economic brains and would be leaving for his prestigious job in Canada at a time the country is in an economic difficulty, though it is widely believed that his rich experience and depth of understanding of the intricacies of Ghana’s economy would be of an enormous importance if he had become the Vice-President of Ghana.

During his stay at the Central Bank, he is reputed to have been the mastermind behind the redenomination of the cedi as well as the stabilisation of the currency to an extent that the Ghana cedi was at par with the US dollar.

The e-zwich common platform for all financial institutions is said to have been his brainchild and he, together with his former boss, Dr. Paul Aquah, former Governor of the BoG, have been credited for the micro and macroeconomic stability the country enjoyed under the past government.

The former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia in Canada where he specialized in Macroeconomics, International Economics, and Monetary Economics.

He has a Bachelor’s (First Class Honors), Master’s and PhD degrees in Economics from Buckingham University (UK), Oxford University (Lincoln College), and Simon Fraser University (Canada).

He also holds the Chartered Institute of Bankers (UK) Diploma (ACIB) and fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (FCIB), Ghana.

Dr. Bawumia, together with the Governor and the Board, assisted in the implementation of key financial sector reforms such as the establishment of the framework for Credit Reference Bureau in Ghana, the Foreign Exchange Act, the abolition of the Secondary Reserve Requirements, the opening up of the banking sector to competition, and led Ghana’s financial sector team in the successful negotiation of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) with the US government.

As a team leader, he chaired the capital markets committee which was responsible for the strategy for Ghana successfully accessing the international capital markets for the first time.

He also led the Bank of Ghana technical negotiation team which together with the government team, negotiated with the World Bank and IMF since 2001 through HIPC and Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF).

He was the Chairman of the Capital Market Committee for Ghana and the Head of the Monetary Policy and Financial Stability Department at the Central Bank.

It is feared that in the wake of perceived witch-hunting of persons believed to be sympathisers of other opposition political parties, some of the country’s finest brains, just like Dr. Bawumia, may move out for jobs outside Ghana.

Bawumia is married to Samira, a former beauty queen and daughter of the People’s National Party (PNC) Chairman, Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan. They have three children.