The Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen has resigned from his position, according to multiple sources.[ads2]
Otherwise known as ‘Alan Cash’, the renowned principal consultant tendered his resignation letter to President Akufo-Addo on Thursday, January 5, 2023.
He has long been rumoured to be nursing the ambition to contest the flagbearership slot of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
But it’s unknown whether the resignation is connected to his ambition of becoming the flagbearer of the NPP for the 2024 general elections.
Alan Kyerematen made an attempt at the leadership of the New Patriotic Party in 2007, capturing 32.3% of votes cast. He was first runner-up to Nana Akufo-Addo who gained 47.96% of votes cast.[ads3]
He made other attempts at the party’s leadership in 2010 and 2014 but placed second to Akufo-Addo, who won the primaries.
In 2012, Ghana nominated Kyerematen for the post of WTO director-general to succeed out-going Director-General Pascal Lamy, and his candidature received the backing of the African Union (AU). However, he did not make the shortlist for the final selection process in 2013. In 2017, Kyerematen was sworn in as Ghana’s Trade Minister.
He has had an extensive and successful professional career in both the private and public sector spanning a period of over twenty-four years.
Mr Kyerematen was a senior corporate executive with a subsidiary of Unilever International in Ghana where he became a junior manager at the age of twenty-two years.
He also worked for a number of years as a principal consultant and head of Public Systems Management with one of the leading management development institutions in Ghana, the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI).[ads4]
In 1998, Alan Kyerematen was appointed by the UNDP as the first regional director of Enterprise Africa, which was an Africa-wide, flagship initiative for the development and promotion of small and medium enterprises. Under that framework, he established enterprise support institutions and programmes in 13 Sub-Saharan Africa countries – Botswana, Benin, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. Over 4,000 African entrepreneurs and small businesses have benefited from these programmes.
In 1990, Kyerematen was responsible for establishing and managing the EMPRETEC Programme in Ghana, a leading business development programme sponsored by the United Nations and Barclays Bank.
He led the transformation of EMPRETEC from a UN project into an independent foundation, and as its founding chief executive, developed the foundation into a world-class institution which is recognized as a successful model and best practice institution for enterprise development in Africa.
Between 1984 and 1990, he participated in and managed a number of major private and public sector consulting assignments in Ghana, as a principal consultant and head of Public Systems Management with the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI), a leading management development institution in Ghana. Prior to this, he was a senior corporate executive with UAC Ghana Ltd, a subsidiary of Unilever International, where he worked in various managerial positions with distinction until 1984.
Alan Kyerematen is a member of the Council of Governors of the British Executive Service Overseas (BESO) in the UK and also a board member of other organizations in Ghana.
In 1994, Kyerematen was listed by the Time magazine as one of the 100 global leaders for the new millennium, alongside Bill Gates, John F. Kennedy Jr., and others.[ads5]
