Dr Paul Acquah is Africa's best central banker
By Gideon Sackitey, Ghanadot

It was a short but impressive ceremony on the fourth floor of the J.B. Building in Washingtoon D.C. The dateSaturday October 21, 2007. The event: Celebration of Africa's Best Central Bank of the Year and the winner was none than our own DR PAUL ACQUAH, GOVERNOR OF THE BANK OF GHANA!

Receiving the award, Dr Acquah said it was in recognition of the hard work and sacrifice of the people and government of Ghana over the last couple of years.
He expressed great sense of fulfilment, saying he was happy that the policy that has been introduced by the Bank of Ghana to strengthen the Cedi had attracted international endorsements.

"It would no doubt encourage government to work harder to justify the mandate of the people," he stressed.

The award was from the African Economy Magazine and the Annual Meetings Daily, both publications track the various annualmeetings of the world's financial markets and institutions and how they are changing lives.

Mr Ato Sufian Ahmed, Ethiopian Finance Minister and Erastus Akingbola, Chief Executive of the year were the other winners.

A citation accompanying the award from African Economy Magazine said Dr Acquah's award was in recognition of his astute leadership, enviable record of a veritable economic turnaround, and "overall success in the art and science of central banking that Dr.Paul Acquah is today being recognised and honoured by The African Economy magazine with the Award of the 2007 AFRICAN CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR OF THE YEAR.”

Mr Ikechi Emenike in a chat on the award by Annual Meetings Daily said the award are competitive and unsolicited because they are based on painstaking tracking of developments relating to each category in the course of the preceding 12 months.

The Annual Meetings Award citationDr. Acquah recently won the Emerging Markets award for the African Central Bank Governor of the Year. That award is based on nominations from investment banks, analysts and economists.

The citation then congratulated the one-time top IMF Economist for changing the situation when Ghana faced an economic meltdown in 2001.
"Prices for gold and cocoa, the country’s main exports, had dropped. The currency was on the verge of collapse, amidst a major surge in inflation and government spending. Into this scenario stepped Paul Acquah to take over the central bank.
"As part of an ambitious new government, Acquah helped engineer reforms that quickly brought the country back from the brink of economic crisis to current growth rates of over 5%. In four years, the currency has been stabilized and single digit inflation is on the cards for 2006.
"A high degree of fiscal discipline, rapid changes in the banking sector and external help in the form of debt relief have been the ingredients of such success."
Dr. Acquah was born in Guabo, a village in central Ghana. He completed his first degree in economics at the University of Ghana and then left for the US to do a master’s degree at Yale University. After a brief stint at the UN, Acquah took up his PhD studies at the University of Pennsylvania and on completion found his first job as a young economist at the IMF. Rising through the ranks, he eventually became deputy director for the Africa department in 1998.

Working at the IMF lent Acquah sufficient experience to help him, as central bank governor, stand his ground in negotiations with the multilateral institutions.

Gideon Sackitey, Ghanadot, November 5, 2007