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Ms Eva Mends, a Chief Economics Officer has been appointed by the Government as the Acting Director of Budget at the Ministry of Finance.

Her appointment has made her the first Ghanaian female to be appointed to the position.

Ms Mends is an alumni of the University of Ghana, where she studied Political Science with Economics and also holds an Executive Masters in Public Administration from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

A statement issued by the Public Relations Unit of the Ministry on behalf of the Sector Minister and copied to the Ghana News Agency, on Thursday, said Ms Mends takes over from Mr Sampson Asare Fianko, who reverts back to his former position as a Deputy Controller and Accountant General.

Ms Mends has undertaken short courses at the Harvard and Duke Universities.

Before her appointment, she was the Group Head of the Public Financial Management Reforms and was instrumental in leading major reforms including; gender responsive budgeting, programme-based budgeting and the development of the new Public Financial Management Act.

She has held other positions including; Head of the Americas Desk in 1998, Head of Budget Development in 2006 and Group Head of Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms in 2013. 

Ms Mends first joined the Ministry as a National Service Person in 1991.

Other appointments announced by the Government included; Mr Eugene Asante Ofosuhene, as the Acting Controller and Accountant General.

He comes to this position with a wealth of experience as a former Deputy Controller and Accountant General responsible for management of the government treasury.

He acted creditably on several occasions as the Controller and Accountant General in the absence of the substantive Controller.

He is a Public Finance Expert and has consulted for the World Bank on the assignment, ‘Strengthening the role of Public Private Partnerships in the Local Government Assemblies’.  

He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (United Kingdom and Ireland) and Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICA), Ghana.

He also has a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Finance option) from the University of Ghana. He is a graduate of the London School of Accountancy.

Mr Ofosuhene takes over from Mr Seidu Kotomah, Controller and Accountant General, who has been re-assigned to the Ministry of Finance.

Meanwhile, Mr David Klotey Collison, a Chief Budget Analyst and Mr Sampson Akligoh, a Technical Advisor to the Minister of Finance, have also been appointed Director of Public Investment Division and Financial Sector Division of the Ministry respectively.

Mr Collison joined the Civil Service as an Assistant Budget Analyst at the Ministry of Finance in December, 1995. Until his recent appointment as Director in charge of Public Investment, he was the Group Head, Budget Development and responsible for Compensations Management and Coordination of the National Budget Development Process from February, 2015.

He graduated with a BSc (Hons) degree in Agriculture, majoring in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ghana in 1993 and also has a Master’s in Business Administration (Finance option) from the same university in 2001.

Mr Akligoh, on the other hand, has over 10 years’ working experience in the financial services industry working in advisory, asset management and as an economist.

Until his appointment to the Ministry, he was the Managing Director of InvestCorp, a financial services firm in Accra, Ghana.  He served as a Vice President at Databank where he was Head of Research and a Fixed Income Strategist.

He also worked at SIC Financial Services Limited and with ADC African Development Corporation AG in Frankfurt which was acquired by Atlas Mara in 2014. 13.

Mr Akligoh also served as an Adjunct Lecturer in International Economics at Ashesi University College in 2014.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Law from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and a Master’s degree in Economics Policy and Corporate Strategy from the Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands.