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Today is the birthday of Communication Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful and www.ghanacelebrations.com celebrates her!
Who is Ursula Owusu-Ekuful?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful (born 20 October 1964) is a lawyer, women’s rights activist and a Ghanaian parliamentarian representing Ablekuma West constituency. She is currently the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation.
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Early life
Owusu-Ekuful was born on 20 October 1964. She hails from Akim Oda in the Eastern Region of Ghana.
Owusu-Ekuful attended Labone Senior High School and proceeded to Mfantisman Girls Secondary School to have her sixth form education. She furthered her education in University of Ghana and the Ghana School Of Law where she obtained an LLB. She was called to the bar in 1990. She has attended courses including one at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, where she obtained a Masters in Conflict, Peace and Security.
Pre-political career
She worked for ten years as a lawyer at Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co. law firm before moving into the telecommunication industry to lead a telecom, Technology Company.
Owusu-Ekuful served on different boards and in different capacities in her professional career. She served as a Managing Consultant, N. U. Consult Legal, Governance and Gender Consultants. She was the acting Managing Director of Western Telesystems (Westel) from September 2005 to May 2008 [1], and from April 2008 to January 2009, she was the Corporate and External Affairs Director, ZAIN Ghana.
Professional associations
Owusu-Ekuful is a member of the Ghana Bar Association. She also served as an Executive Member of International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Ghana and a member of African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA), Ghana. Owusu-Ekuful has been a member of FIDA since 1990 and was a former President of FIDA Ghana and former Vice President of the Africa Regional FIDA International.
Politics
In 2012, she was elected to be the Member of Parliament for the new constituency Ablekuma West Constituency as their first member of parliament.[12] In 2015, she contested and won the NPP parliamentary primaries in the Ablekuma West Constituency.[13] She retained her parliamentary seat during the 2016 Ghanaian general elections by winning with 34,376 votes out of the 60,558 valid votes cast making 56.96%.[3][14] In 2015, she and other women MPs were subject to personal attacks after there was a dispute over places reserved for women members of parliament. She was reported as saying that she was considering her future in politics, but the following year she became the Minister of Communication.
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In 2017, Ursula Owusu was appointed as the Minister to head the Ministry for Communications by President Akufo-Addo.
in December 2020,She contested for reelection as member of parliament in the 2020 Ghanaian general election as the parliamentary candidate for the New Patriotic Party. Going into the election as the incumbent Member of Parliament of the Ablekuma West Constituency, Owusu- Ekuful retained her seat after polling 37,363 out of 69,353 votes. Her closest competitor Rev. Kweku Addo of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) came in next with 30,733 votes, whilst the other candidates who contested from the other parties, GUM, LPG and PNC polled 359, 330 and 65 respectively.
