A senior member of President Nana Akufo-Addo cabinet, Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen has resigned his position as Minister of Trade and Industry.
A statement from the presidency which confirmed the news indicated that he informed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo personally on Thursday, January 5, 2023 and tendered his resignation letter to him.
His reasons are still not clear at the time of going to bed.
The statement signed by Director of Communication at the Office of the President, Eugene Arhin, thanked the Mr Kyerematen for his service to the government and wished him well in his future endeavours.
“The President has asked the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, to act as a caretaker Minister at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, until a substantive appointment is made”, it said.
However, it has been an open secret that Mr Kyerematen, a three-time presidential candidate aspirant of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) still nurse a flagbearer ambition of the party for the 2024 elections.
Snippets gathered by the Times had it that the Minister’s resignation was aimed at concentrating on his campaign as he faced strong competition from incumbent Vice President, DrMahamudu Bawumia, Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, former presidential spokesperson under former president Kufuor, Kwabena Agyepong, among others.
Known by his fans as ‘Alan Cash’, Mr Kyerematen made an attempt at the flagbearership of the NPP in 2007, and had 32.3 per cent as against the winner, Nana Akufo-Addo who gained 47.96 per cent of votes cast.
He made two other attempts in 2010 and 2014 but placed second to Akufo-Addo, who won both primaries again.
MrKyerematen was born October 3, 1955. He was an Ambassador of Ghana to the United States and later Minister of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development (PSD) and the Presidential Special Initiatives (PSI), under the President John Kufuor-led NPP government.
Mr Kyerematen served as a trade advisor at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he coordinated the African Trade Policy Centre (ATPC).
His father, A. A. Y. Kyerematen was the commissioner for Local Government during the National Liberation Council regime and became the founder and first director of the Centre for National Culture located in Kumasi of the Ashanti Region and later, he was appointed the mayor of Kumasi.
Mr Alan Kyerematen also holds a law degree, LLB from the Ghana Law School at the same university where he qualified as a barrister-at-Law.
He was called to the bar in Ghana, and is a practicing attorney–at-law in Ghana.
In addition, he is a Hubert Humphrey fellow of the School of Management at the University of Minnesota, U.S., having completed one year management studies under the Fulbright Fellowship programme at that institution.
Alan John Kyerematen has had an extensive and successful professional career in both the private and public sector spanning a period of over twenty-four years.
He 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).
caption – Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen
