Biography of Controller and Accountant-General making a bid for the Akim Swedru seat

Mr Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompen, Ghana's accomplished and distinguished Controller and Accountant-General, is making a bid to enter Parliament after a lifetime of public service - but who is the man behind the legend?

The people of Akim Swedru are currently on the precipice of choosing their next Member of Parliament.

Amidst the declared candidates so far for the ticket of the ruling New Patriotic Party, it's hard to make an argument for anyone as being more qualified, and perhaps deserving of the mantle of serving Akim Swedru in Parliament than Mr Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem.

In his several decades of experience in public service, Mr Kwaning-Bosompem has distinguished himself as an overachieving, charismatic and visionary leader with morally outstanding qualities which put him in a unique position as the right person to bring transformational changes to the people of Akim Swedru.

Biography

Mr Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem is currently the Controller and Accountant-General for the Republic of Ghana, the unquestioned head of the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD).

He ascended to the position of Controller General in April 2019 after his predecessor, Eugene Ofosuhene, was directed by the President to proceed on compulsory retirement.

Before that, Mr Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem had served as Deputy Controller and Accountant General in Charge of payroll.

Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem was born in Akim Swedru in the Eastern Region of Ghana where he grew up and had his early education. He attended Akim Swedru Senior High School before training to become an accountant.

He started his career as a lowly accountant with the Koforidua Central Hospital in 1988. From these humble beginnings, he demonstrated his competence and rose swiftly up the ladder.

He worked with numerous governmental institutions, agencies, local authorities and private organizations including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD), Ghana Cement Works, Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and Driver and Vehicle License Authority (DVLA).

Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem left behind a litany of achievements at each position, building up his profile until it culminated with his appointment as the Controller and Accountant General in 2019.

His qualifications include an MBA in Strategic Management from the Paris Graduate School of Management, a council member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana, as well as undergoing numerous courses in Management and ICT.

He is also a member of the Ghana Road Fund Board and the Energy Commission Board pertaining to the management and administration of the Energy fund, as stipulated by section 43 of the Energy Commission, Act 1997 (Act 541).

He also served on the Boards of Makola Market Company and the Accra Abattoir.

Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem is passionate about Public Sector Reforms and Institutional restructuring, and he has built up the skills to ensure his vision comes to fruition.

In his personal and professional life, he has displayed integrity and excellence bar none.

Mr Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem has always upheld the highest professional standards to ensure the best outcomes and is competent at influencing others without undermining their professional judgement through the application of objective and empathetic reasoning.

He has cultivated a strong moral foundation to be able to address ethical dilemmas when they arise.

Achievements

In over three decades of reputable public sector service, Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem has acquired a litany of impressive achievements including;

- Leading the implementation of policies aimed at expenditure rationalization and efficiency; coordinating strategies that improved revenue mobilization and administration to achieve the government’s fiscal consolidation goals.

- Significantly leading the development of Ghana’s National Policy on Public-Private-Partnership (PPP), which ensures value for money, affordability, efficient risk allocation, local content, and transfer of technology in the promotion and administration of PPPs.

- Facilitating the implementation of the Programme Based Budgeting System in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a major policy shift in the budget preparation process for the Ghana Government.

As Controller and Accountant-General, Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem brought the same cocktail of competence and firm leadership to attain significant achievements including.:

- Overseeing and enforcing nationwide implementation of the Ghana Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS) in all public sector offices to protect the public purse and curb corruption.

- Recovering 95 per cent of unearned salaries, a staggering amount of GH¢3,129,135.58, within the reporting period of 2021.

- Implementing a welfare improvement scheme to encourage hard work and improve staff well-being to increase productivity in the Controller and Accountant General Department (CAGD).The schemes - including a Ghc 200,000 staff welfare health scheme fund to provide quality healthcare for staff, an operational manual and a bank account management manual - were aimed at helping the staff to get the care they need to stimulate work motivation and promote productivity.

Awards

Throughout his long and distinguished career, Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem has won several awards including the following:

- Governance and Civil Leader of the Year at the 2019 Ghana Leadership Awards in recognition of his outstanding and exemplary leadership in public sector governance and commitment to duty.

- Distinguished Individual Award at the 2021 West African Nobles Forum (WANF) 32nd Annual Congress and Awards.

- Induction into the Ghana Leadership Awards Hall of Fame as a model worth emulating by other leaders to drive development in all aspects of governance.

Parliamentary Aspirations

Following decades of service as an accountant serving the entire nation, Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem has made the incredibly daunting decision to take his talents and experience to Ghana’s lawmaking authority to serve his people.

He has picked up forms to contest as the Parliamentary candidate for the ruling New Patriotic Party in the Akim Swedru constituency.

Mr Kwaning-Bosompem faces two challengers, the incumbent MP for the area, Kennedy Osei Nyarko, and Jerome Kwame Akodo.

Kennedy Osei Nyarko won the Akim Swedru seat in the 2020 elections with 11,180 representing 71.3 per cent of the total valid votes cast in the constituency.

The NDC's Taaju Abdu Rahim, the challenger, only polled 4,503 votes, representing 28.7 per cent of the valid votes cast.

Akim Swedru has been an NPP stronghold since 1996 when Felix Kwasi-Owusu-Adjapong wrestled the seat for the NPP from the clutches of the NDC's Paul Kofi Peprah, who had won it in 1992.

The incumbent MP, Kennedy Osei Nyarko has held the seat since 2012, consistently winning his last two elections by around 70% of the vote.

The real challenge for this seat would come from the NPP primaries, where the Controller and Accountant General is running a strong insurgent campaign to unseat Osei Nyarko.

Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem enters the race with a strong track record of public sector excellence, paired with a philanthropic record of helping the people of Akim Swedru, manifested in many donations to his alma mater, Akim Swedru Senior High School as well as periodic donations to the poor and needy in the constituency.

The Controller-General has also supported several residents in the area by empowering them to become economically stable through skills training.

Demonstrating his popularity in the area, Mr Kwaning-Bosompem recently held a rally leading more than 2,000 supporters on a three-hour health walk through the principal streets of Swedru.

Having outlined grandiose plans for the area if elected, his candidacy is gaining momentum and poses a fatal threat to Osei Nyarko's re-election.

Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem, who chose number 3 on the NPP primary ballot paper, has put in place every needed preparation to win the contest and is surely headed to Parliament to build on his decades of dedicated and excellent public service.

By Chris-Vincent Agyapong Febiri, the author is a Ghanaian-British writer/journalist and a Human Rights Lawyer based in the UK