Alan Kyeremanten Resigns As Trade Minister

News coming in indicates that Trade Minister Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen has resigned from the government.

Multiple sources close to the minister said he tendered his resignation letter to President Nana Akufo-Addo on Thursday, Jan 5, 2023.

The man popularly called ‘Alan Cash’ has long been rumoured to be nursing the ambition to contest the flagbearership slot of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

But it’s unclear if the resignation is to allow him to concentrate on that ambition.

It could be recalled that Mr Kyerematen made an attempt at the leadership of the NPP in 2007, capturing 32.3% of the votes cast. He was first runner-up to Nana Akufo-Addo who gained 47.96% of votes cast.

Mr Kyerematen made other attempts at the party’s leadership in 2010 and 2014 but placed second to Akufo-Addo, who won the primaries.

In 2012, Ghana nominated Kyerematen for the post of WTO director-general to succeed out-going Director-General Pascal Lamy, and his candidature received the backing of the African Union (AU).

However, he did not make the shortlist for the final selection process in 2013.

In 2017, Kyerematen was sworn in as Ghana’s Trade Minister.

Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen (born 3 October 1955) is a Ghanaian politician who serves as Minister for Trade and Industry in Ghana, a position he has held since 2017. Kyerematen was 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 Kufuor-led NPP government. 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).

Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen was born to Alexander Atta Yaw Kyerematen, a social anthropologist from Patasse, Kumasi and Victoria Kyerematen (née Welsing) from Elmina and Ejisu. He was named after an archbishop of the Church of England, Alan John Knight who was the headmaster of the all-boys Anglican boarding school, Adisadel College in Cape Coast in the 1930s, and a mentor to his father, Alexander A. Y. Kyerematen who was then a student there and later, a head boy in his final year. A. A. Y.

Kyerematen was the commissioner for Local Government during the National Liberation Council regime. In 1951, his father became the founder and first director of the Centre for National Culture located in Kumasi of the Ashanti Region and later on, he was appointed the mayor of Kumasi and the commissioner for local government between 1966 and 1969.

Like his father before him, Alan Kyerematen attended Adisadel College for his secondary education, entering the institution at the record age of nine years after starting out at then Asokore Mampong Secondary School now Kumasi Academy. He attended the prestigious Achimota School afterwards for his sixth form education. He proceeded to the University of Ghana, Legon for a bachelor’s degree in Economics.

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 program at that institution.