Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia (born October 7, 1963, Tamale, Northern region, Ghana ), is an economist and banker of international distinction and repute.He was a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana until his nomination as Vice Presidential candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in 2008. He also run as the Vice - Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party in Ghanas 2012 General Elections and was the lead witness for the petitioners in the 2012/2013 Presidential Election Petition which challenged the declaration of John Mahama as winner of the Ghanas 2012 Presidential Election. He is married to Samira Ramadan and they have four children. Parents He was born on October 7, 1963 in Tamale to the late Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, former Chairman of the Council of State (1992 - 2000) and Hajia Mariama Bawumia. Dr. Bawumias father, the distinguished Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, was a teacher, lawyer and veteran politician who devoted virtually all his life to public service. The late Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia was a Mamprugu Royal and Paramount Chief of the Kperiga Traditional Area at the time of his passing in September 2002. He was a founding member of the Northern Peoples Party alongside such political stalwarts as Chief S. D. Dombo, Chief Abeifa Karbo, Yakubu Tali, the Tolon Naa, and J. A. Braimah, Kabachewura. The Northern Peoples Party, together with the National Liberation Movement and other opposition political parties later metamorphosed into the United Party, the forebear of the current New Patriotic Party. Alhaji Bawumia due his influence in Northern Ghana politics served under various Ghanaian governments in various capacities including member of the Northern Territories Council, the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly, a Member of Parliament of the First Republic, Northern Regional Minister, and Ghana Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For his distinguished public service, Alhaji Bawumia was in March 1999 awarded the national highest honour at the time, a Member of the Order of the Star of Ghana. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s mother, Hajia Mariama Bawumia, is a native of Kpasenkpe in the West Mamprusi District. She was a brilliant student, and was one of the first northern female students to gain admission to the prestigious Wesley Girls High School, Cape Coast. Education Born into a large family, Mahamudu Bawumia was the twelfth of his father’s 18 children and the second of his mother’s five. Mahamudu Bawumia attended the Sakasaka Primary school in Tamale, and gained admission to Tamale Secondary School in 1975, where he quickly established a strong reputation for his exceptional academic performance. He was awarded the prize for Best Overall Student in Form 3. He continued to excel in his studies, and dazzled his audiences with his superb debating skills as a member of the Tamale Secondary School Debating Team, which was adjudged the best in the Northern and Upper Regions competition in 1981. He was also Wemah House Prefect at Tamale Secondary School. Dr. Bawumia also had a keen interest in sports and represented Tamale Secondary School in Table Tennis at inter-school sporting competitions. His leadership skills and abilities were noted earlier on, and he was appointed as the Wemah House Prefect during his Sixth Form at Tamale Secondary School. Mahamudu Bawumia was also President of the Ghana United Nations Students’ Association (GUNSA) for the year 1981. After graduating from Tamale Secondary School, he proceeded to the United Kingdom where he undertook professional banking studies and obtained the Chartered Institute of Bankers Diploma (ACIB) with distinctions in Banking Law, Monetary Economics, Accounting and Banking within the rather short period of 18 months! He undertook undergraduate study at Buckingham University where he topped his record of academic brilliance with a First Class Honours Degree in Economics in 1987. He subsequently gained admission to Oxford University, Lincoln College, where, one year later, he obtained a Master’s Degree in Economics. He pursued his doctoral studies in economics at the prestigious Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he obtained a Ph.D. in Economics in 1995. His areas of specialization include Macroeconomics, International Economics, Development Economics and Monetary Policy. He has numerous publications to his credit. Work experience From 1988 to 1990, Dr. Bawumia worked as a lecturer in Monetary Economics, and International Finance at the Emile Woolf College of Accountancy in London, England. He also served as an economist at the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, USA. Between 1996 and 2000, Dr. Bawumia served as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, Texas, USA, where he also received the Young Researcher Award in 1998. As a result of Dr. Bawumia’s commitment to excellence in teaching, he made the list of Who is Who Among America’s Teachers in 1999. Dr. Bawumia returned to Ghana in 2000 to work as an economist at the Bank of Ghana. He rose through the ranks from Senior Economist to Head of Department, and subsequently as Special Assistant to the Governor of the Bank. His Excellency President J.A. Kufuor appointed Dr. Bawumia as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana in June 2006. At the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Bawumia established himself as a skilled policy maker with a reputation for being a doer, a hands- on technocrat, and a professional with a remarkable ability to successfully handle complex issues. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s professional accomplishments at the Bank of Ghana include the following: • As Head of the Monetary Policy and Financial Stability Department, he was part of the team that designed and implemented the inflation targeting framework that continues to guide monetary policy and the workings of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of Ghana. The inflation targeting framework established was successful in reducing inflation from over 40% in 2000 to 10.2 % by 2007 (i.e., before the oil price shock of 2007/2008) while maintaining relative exchange rate stability. • Was part of the team that was instrumental in designing and implementing policy initiatives such as the abolition of the secondary reserve requirements and the opening up of the banking sector to competition. This resulted in a major increase in the availability of credit to the private sector from 12.5% of GDP in 2001 to 28.5% of GDP by 2008. • Led Bank of Ghana’s technical negotiation team and has been part of Government team that has negotiated with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund since 2001 through HIPC and PRGF. Partly as a result of these negotiations, Ghana by 2007 successfully ended its dependence on IMF assistance. • Served as a member of the Government technical negotiating team on HIPC Paris Club and Completion Point Negotiations. Ghana completed the HIPC process successfully with significant debt relief of close to $4 billion. • Was a member of the Government Team to Negotiate the Millennium Challenge Account Compact with the US Government. The MCA resulted in many significant projects such as the recently inaugurated George Bush Highway. • Was a member of the Government Technical Team on the Deregulation of Ghana’s Petroleum Sector. • As Chairman of the Capital Markets Committee, was responsible for the strategy for accessing the international capital markets with a debut $750 million dollars, which was four times oversubscribed. • Was part of the team that designed and implemented the successful redenomination of the cedi which has been hailed globally. Through this process, the cedi was considerably strengthened and Ghanaians found renewed confidence in their currency. Significant savings were also made by the Bank of Ghana in currency printing costs. • Played a key role in the design and implementation of the e-zwich common platform for all banks, savings and loans companies and rural banks. This common platform will result in inter-operability across different financial institutions. The first nationwide technologically-driven platform for monetary transactions across the country, the e-zwich has put Ghana on the map as a world leader in the application of biometric smartcard technology for banking the unbanked. • As the deputy Governor in charge of financial stability, successfully maintained oversight over the soundness of the banking sector. • As Deputy Governor Dr. Bawumia served on the Boards of the Bank of Ghana, Ghana International Bank (UK), Ghana Telecom, Revenue Agencies Governing Board, Social Security and National Insurance Trust. Shortly after the 2008 election Bawumia resigned as Deputy Governor at the Bank of Ghana . 2008 Elections Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was named Running Mate to the New Patriotic Party flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 Elections. In justifying the naming of Dr. Bawumia as partner in the 2008 General Elections, Nana Akufo-Addo variously described Dr. Bawumia as “a young, enterprising professional with an impressive career record in his youthful life, adding that he would work effectively with him to move the nation to its next level of development and provide the needed transformational leadership.” He again indicated that The selection of Dr Bawumia, a young Muslim from the north as my running mate, was done to help ensure the unity of the nation. We need a national leadership that reflects the multi- ethnic and multi-religious dimensions of the nation, and that is exactly what I want to lead the NPP to do. Dr. Bawumias nomination to the NPP Presidential ticket in the 2008 General Elections, saw the NPP increasing its tally of votes substantially in all the three Northern Regions – both the first round and second round. In the first round of the 2008 General Elections, the Presidential ticket of the New Patriotic Party garnered 303,326 votes representing 37.79% of the total valid votes cast in the Northern Region; 118,454 votes representing 35.25% of the total valid votes cast in the Upper East Region and 81,093 votes representing 37.62% in the Upper West Region. In the Run-off poll, the New Patriotic Party secured 312,781 votes representing 38.39% of votes in the Northern Region. The Party secured 117,470 votes representing 34.45% in the Upper East Region and also received 81,566 votes representing 37.68% in the Upper West Region. These results were a remarkable improvement over the 2004 figures which helped secure a second term for the John Agyekum-Kufuor presidency. The figures provide in a small part for the observer, a statistical ability to mark the impact of Dr. Bawumia in 2008. Generally however, the nomination of Dr. Bawumia as Running Mate of Dr. Bawumia increased the appeal of the ticket to the youth brackets of the population, the middle class, Northern population, Muslim population and generally, the percentage of the electorate desiring proven competent leaders to manage the resources and affairs of the state. After 2008 Elections After the 2008 Elections, Dr. Bawumia as an accomplished technocrat and policy maker who played a key role in the successful implementation of a wide range of economic and financial reforms in Ghana during the last decade was engaged on several assignments internationally. Dr. Bawumia served as a Consultant to the Economic Commission of Africa between February and March 2009 during which he prepared a Paper on Africa’s position for the G20 London Summit. Between April and October 2009, Dr. Bawumia served as a Visiting Scholar at the University of British Columbia Liu Centre for Global Studies and Fisheries Centre. In October 2009, he was appointed as a Fellow of the International Growth Centre (IGC), a research institute based jointly at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Oxford University that provides advice on economic growth to governments of developing countries, specifically serving as an IGC Team Member for Sierra Leone. He also served as an Advisor to the Central Bank of Sierra Leone on the redesigning of the organizational structure of the Bank and its monetary policy framework. Between October 2009 and October 2010, he also served as a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford, Department of Economics. In January 2011, Dr. Bawumia was tapped by the African Development Bank and appointed to the challenging position of Resident Representative of the African Development Bank for Zimbabwe. He served in this position till he was reappointed as the Vice-Presidential Candidate to Nana Akufo-Addo on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party for Ghanas 2012 Presidential Election. 2012 Elections Dr. Bawumia was re-nominated as the Vice- Presidential Candidate to Nana Akufo-Addo for the 2012 General Elections in March 2012. On May 2nd 2012, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia delivered the much talked about State of the Economy Address during which he took on the National Democratic Congress Administration for the poor management of the Ghanaian Economy and the handling of various statistical data. The lecture attracted wide discussions in Ghana but generally added to the credentials of Dr. Bawumia as an astute economist who understands the workings of the Ghanaian Economy. Dr. Bawumia as Vice-Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party concentrated mainly on the Northern Region as well as the Upper East and Upper West Regions. The work of Dr. Bawumia in the three Northern Regions is seen as a significant factor in securing the New Patriotic Party its best performance in Northern Ghana since the onset of multi-party democracy in 1992. The Party won eleven (11) seats in the Northern Region including Yendi, Walewale, Yagaba – Kubore, Bunkpurugu, Bimbilla, Chereponi, Daboya – Mankarigu, Kpandai, Tatale – Sanguli, Tolon and Zabzugu. The Party also won the Nabdam and Talensi Constituencies in the Upper East Region. The ticket of Nana Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia however lost the Presidential Elections narrowly to incumbent John Dramani Mahama.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 15:33:47 +0000