Africa: The best Finance Minister for Africa Award for 2011 goes to Ghana
By Shout-africa.com correspondent,from Accra-Ghana – According to the authoritative London-based magazine, The Banker, published by the Financial Times Group since 1926, conferred the award on Dr Duffuor for leading a team that initiated prudent fiscal policies anchored on checking waste in public spending, ensuring quality of expenditure and enhancing domestic revenue mobilisation through improvement in tax policies.
Dr Kwabena Duffuor
The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, has won the prestigious Finance Minister for Africa award for 2011 after beating six other African finance ministers shortlisted for the award.
In its January 2011 edition, the publication considered that in less than two years at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, the minister “has been leading an arduous campaign to weed out wasteful public spending and enhance revenue”,
It stated, “His vision for the medium term has been to accelerate growth of the Ghanaian economy without compromising macroeconomic stability.” It added that Dr Duffuor had also implemented fiscal and financial policies that promoted fiscal sustainability and support for the domestic financial system.
as it went to show that the nation’s efforts at turning the economy around within a short period had received international recognition and approval.
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The African finance ministers who raced with Dr Duffuor were from South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda ,these countries ministers are among tops finance ministers transforming the financial sectors in Africa .
“The distance we have travelled in these few months is remarkable. The benefits of the government’s commitment to its economic programmes are clearly visible and the decline in the overall budget deficit this year (2010) is appropriate,” the Finance Minister told The Banker in an interview .
The Independence, a local newspaper, crowned Dr Duffuor Man of the Year in 1997. Around the same period, he was also crowned the Marketing Man of the Year by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG). 2010 , he received the International Distinguished Merit Award from the Gambia-based West African Institute of Insurance (WAII).
Dr Duffuor holds a PhD from the University of Syracuse, New York. His dissertation was titled:
“The impact of the post 1971 exchange rate system on developing countries, with special reference to Ghana”. The Finance Minister also holds two masters degrees – an MBA in Finance and Banking and a Master of Arts in Economics.
