The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta has on January 30, 2017, assumed office as after he was sworn-in on January 27, 2017, by the President Nana Addo.
The Minister has over 30 years of experience in the Ghanaian and international financial sector.
His immediate priority is to ensure the Ghanaian economy is stabilised. He is also expected to ensure taxes are reduced whiles finding alternative means of generating income for the country.
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Ofori Atta also has a task of creating a business-friendly environment for private businesses to thrive in the country.
“We will improve people’s lives by enhancing public finances, managing our debt and debt servicing costs, investing in critical infrastructure, and empowering the private sector to create jobs”, he said.
A statement issued by the Finance Ministry also indicated that “he intends to work hard to get the economy growing eventually at 7% and beyond through policies and strategies that will increase revenue, reduce waste, target spending, restructuring debts and improving infrastructure.”
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Ofori Atta stated that the 3-year IMF programme was integral to the achievement of the government’s economic agenda.
“I am committed to the programme and will ensure that we meet all the necessary structural benchmarks. We have postponed taking the hard decisions for a long time, but we now need to fix these structural problems and get our economy growing again.”
He further assured to deliver on the NPPs Manifesto pledges in spite of the daunting economic challenges.
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“Some of these would be delivered in the first budget expected by end-March, 2017,” he promised.
Ken Ofori Atta and twelve other Minister designates were approved by Parliament on Thursday, January 26, after going through a successful vetting process by the Appointments Committee of Parliament.
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He was a Co-Founder and former Chairman of the Databank Group, (a premier investment banking firm) in Ghana.
Prior to co-founding Databank in 1990, he was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and Salomon Brothers on Wall Street in New York.
He has other business interests in Insurance, Retail Banking, Private Equity, Pharmaceuticals and Real Estate.
He went to Achimota School; received a BA in Economics from Columbia University in New York and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.