Kodwo Baah-Wiredu is the subject of the Adom Brands of the Multimedia Group’s Ghana Month celebration.
The brands have chosen the affable Ghanaian because of his footprints in the fields of finance, good governance and the humility with which he achieved his successes.
Mr Baah-Wiredu who was born in 1952 was a Ghanaian politician and a Chartered Accountant.
He was a Member of Parliament in the Parliament of Ghana for Asante Akim North Constituency from January 1997 until his death on September 24, 2008.
He served as a Minister of State in different ministries under the John Kufuor government from 2001.
Baah-Wiredu was born in Asante Akyem Agogo but he started his secondary education at the Kumasi High School, Kumasi in 1967.
He obtained the GCE Ordinary Level Certificate in 1972 and proceeded to have his sixth-form education at Prempeh College, also in Kumasi.
Baah-Wiredu proceeded to the University of Ghana in 1974 and obtained a B.Sc. in Administration (Accounting option).
He then did a four-year course with the Institute of Chartered Accountants, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1985.
Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu worked in various positions with Ghana Airways and Volta River Authority.
He worked as a Senior Consultant on computer systems and as Finance Manager of Ananse Systems.
Before being a Parliament member, he was a partner in Asante Wiredu and Associates, an accounting firm.
Baah-Wiredu began his political career in 1997 after emerging as the winner of the 1996 Ghanaian General Election.
He was one of the campaigners against the Union Government (UNIGOV) concept promoted by General Acheampong’s Supreme Military Council in 1978.
He joined the New Patriotic Party when it was formed in 1992 and became a Member of Parliament in the Second Parliament of the Fourth Republic after the 1996 parliamentary elections and retained his seat until he passed away in 2008.
Minister of State
Mr Baah-Wiredu became a Minister in John Kufuor’s New Patriotic Party government in 2001 during which he held the portfolios of Local Government and Rural Development from 2001 to 2003 and Education, Youth and Sports from 2003 to 2005.
He became the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning in 2005.
In 2005, he was the first Finance Minister in Ghana’s history to present the country’s Budget Statement and Economic Policy to Parliament before the arrival of that fiscal year with his budget for the fiscal year 2006.
Since then, this has become a norm for all successive Finance Ministers.
In 2000, Baah-Wiredu won the general election as the Member of Parliament for the Asante Akyem North constituency of the Ashanti Region of Ghana.
He won on the ticket of the News Patriotic Party. His constituency was a part of the 31 parliamentary seats out of 33 seats won by the New Patriotic Party in that election for the Ashanti Region.
The New Patriotic Party won a majority total of 99 parliamentary seats out of 200 seats. He was elected with 32,341 votes out of 45,227 total valid votes cast.
This was equivalent to 72.3% of the total valid votes cast.
The Baah-Wiredu Memorial Lecture was established in 2014 to recognise and immortalise the life and works of Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, a Chartered Accountant, Politician and Public Servant who died in office while serving as Ghana’s Minister for Finance and Economic Planning under President John Agyekum-Kufuor
Baah-Wiredu was married with six children.
On 24 September 2008, Baah-Wiredu died in South Africa where he had been receiving medical treatment for a short illness.