President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured the family of the late Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, that the State will partner with them to give the departed statesman a befitting burial.
Prof. Botchwey, who served as a finance minister first during the military era of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) from 1982 to 1991 and then in the constitutional period of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) from 1992 to 1995, died on Saturday 19 November 2022, at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, where he was seeking medical care.
Addressing the family of the late professor at the Jubilee House when they paid a courtesy call on him to formally inform him of the death of their beloved, President Akufo-Addo, recounted how he first met Dr Botchwey and the kind of relationship that existed between them till his sad passing.
State participation
The President assured the family that the office of the Chief of Staff at the office of the President, Madam Akosua Frema Osei Opare, is opened to them and that the State would very much love to be part of all arrangements leading to his final funeral and burial rites.
“Dr Botchwey and I met as young men at the University of Ghana in the mid-1960s and developed a relationship that has lasted right up till today. Our relationship was nurtured by our interest in the public life of our country, and its political issues and political affairs.
“I found it always very easy to talk to him, exchange ideas and in-fact, there was even a time that we were neighbours when we lived together in Labone where we had just a wall that separated our two homes” President Akufo-Addo said.
“He was a very dedicated, very honest, very distinguished Ghana. He became a leading political figure in our country at a very difficult period in the history of Ghana.
“The outpouring of grieve that there is in the nation today is a good testimony of how Ghanaians valued his contribution to the growth of our nation”, President Akufo-Addo added.
About Kwesi Botchwey
Born on 3 September 1944, Prof. Botchwey was 78 at the time of his death. Until his death, he was a member of the Council of Elders of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Prof. Botchwey will go down in Ghana’s history books as the country’s longest-serving finance minister.
He served in office alongside Ghana’s longest-serving head of state, the late former president Jerry John Rawlings.
The economist received his secondary education at the Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School.
Prof. Botchwey, held an LLB from the University of Ghana, an LLM from Yale Law School and a doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School.
He taught at the University of Zambia, the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and the University of Ghana.
Among other notable previous assignments, he was an advisor to the World Bank on the 1997 World Development Report.
Prof. Botchwey served as a member and chairman of the IMF’s Group of Independent Experts, which conducted the first ever external evaluation of the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, and as an advisor to the United Nations Development Programme’s Special Initiative on Africa.
He was also as an advisor to the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM).
