Ghana government appoints first female Director of Budget
Government has appointed new officers to key positions at the Ministry of Finance, according to a statement issued by the Public Relations Unit of the Ministry of Finance on Thursday.
Ms Eva Mends, a Chief Economics Officer, has been appointed as the Acting Director of Budget, the first ever female to be appointed to the position at the Ministry and Mr. Eugene Asante Ofosuhene, as the Acting Controller and Accountant General.
In addition, Mr David Klotey Collison, a Chief Budget Analyst and Mr Sampson Akligoh, a Technical Advisor to the Minister of Finance have also been appointed Director of Public Investment Division and Financial Sector Division of the Ministry.
Ms Mends, the Group Head of the Public Financial Management Reforms, joined the Ministry as a National Service Person in 1991.
Positions she has held include, Head of The Americas Desk in 1998, Head of Budget Development in 2006 and Group Head of Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms in 2013.
As Group Head, she was instrumental in leading major reforms that include gender responsive budgeting, Programme Based Budgeting and lately the development of the new PFM Act.
She is an alumnus of University of Ghana, where she studied Political Science with Economics and also has an Executive Masters in Public Administration from GIMPA.
She has undertaken short courses at the Harvard and Duke Universities. She takes over from Mr Sampson Asare Fianko, who reverts to his former position as a Deputy Controller and Accountant General.
Mr Ofosuhene comes to the position as the Acting Controller and Accountant General with a wealth of experience.
As a former Deputy Controller and Accountant General, he was responsible for management of the Government Treasury.
He acted creditably on a number of occasions as the Controller and Accountant General in the absence of the substantive Controller.
He is a Public Finance Expert and has consulted for the World Bank on the assignment, ‘Strengthening the role of Public Private Partnerships in the Local Government Assemblies’.
Mr Ofosuhene is a Fellow of The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (U.K. & Ireland) F.C.C.A and Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICA) Ghana.
He has a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Finance option) from the University of Ghana.
He is also a graduate of the London School of Accountancy. He takes over from Mr Seidu Kotomah, Controller and Accountant General, who has been reassigned to the Ministry of Finance.
Mr David Klotey Collison joined the Civil Service as an Assistant Budget Analyst at the Ministry of Finance in December, 1995.
Until his recent appointment as Director in charge of Public Investment, he was the Group Head, Budget Development and was responsible for Compensations Management and Coordination of the National Budget Development Process from February, 2015.
Mr Collison graduated with a BSc (Hons) degree in Agriculture, majoring in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ghana in 1993 and also has a Master’s in Business Administration (Finance option) from the same university in 2001.
Mr Sampson Akligoh has more than 10 years’ working experience in the financial services industry working in advisory, asset management and as an economist.
Until his appointment to the Ministry, he was the Managing Director of InvestCorp, a financial services firm in Accra, Ghana.
He served as a Vice President at Databank where he was Head of Research and a Fixed Income Strategist.
He also worked at SIC Financial Services Limited and with ADC African Development Corporation AG in Frankfurt which was acquired by Atlas Mara in 2014.
Mr Akligoh also served as an Adjunct Lecturer in International Economics at Ashesi University College in 2014.
He holds a BA in Economics and Law (First Class Honours) from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology in Ghana, and a Master’s degree in Economic Policy and Corporate Strategy from the Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands.
Source: GNA