A. Kwame Pianim is a celebrated Ghanaian business economist and investment consultant. After ten years as a political prisoner, he made a 1996 bid to run for the presidency of Ghana. Switching gears, he found success as a businessman in Accra.
Contents |
He is married to a Dutch woman named Cornelia Pianim. Their son Elkin Kwesi Pianim (born 1970), a Vassar College trained corporate financier, married global media magnate Elisabeth Murdoch; Kwame Pianim thus has two grandchildren in common with Rupert Murdoch.
His attempts to contest the 1996 presidential elections on the ticket of the centre-right New Patriotic Party were scuppered when the Supreme Court ruled to uphold a controversial law preventing individuals convicted of treasonous acts from holding public office, even if such acts were committed during periods of unconstitutional rule.
Following the Court's decision, he resigned from politics to focus on private activities within the realm of development economics.[1]
As an economist, his philosophy is multi-dimensional, but a consistent theme has been the essential incompatibility between the economic agenda of poor nations, or what ought to be their economic agenda, and the priorities of the Bretton Woods system.
He was once the chairman of the Public Utility Regulation Council (PURC) of Ghana, a high-level commission tasked with the responsibility of overseeing and regulating electricity and water utilities. He however resigned in December 2007 as a result of differences with the then ruling NPP government of John A. Kuffuor.