Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia is 60 years today.
He was born on October 7, 1963 in Tamale to Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, former Chairman of the Council of State (1992-2000) and Hajia Mariama Bawumia, both of blessed memory.
He was born into a large family and the 12th of his father’s 18 children and the second of his mother’s five children.
His father was a teacher, lawyer and politician and a Mamprugu Royal and Paramount Chief of Kperiga in the then Northern Region.
Dr Bawumia is married to Samira Ramadan Bawumia, the only daughter of Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, the former PNC National Chairman with four children.
He mostly celebrates his birthday with the less privileged persons and the vulnerable in society such as the cured lepers, street children and makes donations to children’s wards in some health facilities.
Interestingly, if Dr Bawumia is a civil servant, he should be retiring from active public service per the country’s constitution.
The Civil Service Act 1993 (PNDCL 327) and the Labour Act of 2003 (Act 651) mandate government workers to compulsorily retire at the age of sixty (60).
The irony of the situation is that, Dr Bawumia is now seeking the highest office of the land, the President of the Republic, if he eventually wins the NPP Presidential slot on November 4 and the 2024 general election.
Educational Background
He began his basic education at the Sakasaka Primary School in Tamale, and gained admission to the Tamale Secondary School in 1975.
He was President of the Ghana United Nations Students’ Association (GUNSA) in 1981.
After his second cycle education, he went to the United Kingdom where he studied banking and obtained the Chartered Institute of Bankers Diploma (ACIB).
He obtained a First Class Honours Degree in Economics from Buckingham University in 1987.
He then obtained a master’s degree in Economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, and obtained a Ph.D. in Economics at the Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1995.
His areas of specialisation include Macroeconomics, International Economics, Development Economics and Monetary Policy.
Role as head of EMT
Dr Bawumia heads Government’s Economic Management Team (EMT), which oversees the macro economic management of country.
Over the past six years, Dr Bawumia has championed the government’s digitisation agenda leading to the digitisation of the various public institutions.
For instance, the rolling out of the National Property and Digital Addressing System, with over five million houses tagged with property addresses so far.
Mobile Money Interoperability System
He was instrumental in implementing the Triangular Mobile Money Interoperability Payment System at a reduced cost of $4.5 million, instead of $1.2 billion the previous government announced as the cost for implementation.
Recovery from COVID-19 pandemic
Dr Bawumia was part of the Akufo-Addo’s Administration that steered the country from the COVID-19 pandemic which struck the entire globe in late 2019, wrecking havoc on all economies of the world.
The pandemic affected global supply chains and the response put a burden on public finances.
In Ghana, for instance, inflation, exchange rate depreciation and debt levels globally hit a 40- year high as countries scrambled to cope with the impact on lives and livelihoods.
Ghana’s inflation increased from 12.9% in December 2021 to 54% by December 2022 with an attendant depreciation of the Ghana cedi by 30% in 2022.
There was also the Russia-Ukraine war that started at a time when the world was yet to recover fully from some major challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘With what we have done and continue doing in the wake of the global challenges, the outcome, thus far, points to an auspicious future’ Vice President Bawumia once said at an economic forum in Accra.
Source: Ghana News Agency