Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu Biography
Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu Biography
He is a third-term Member of Parliament who represents the Suame Constituency within the Kumasi Metropolis in mid-Ghana, precisely in the Ashanti Region. He first entered Parliament in January 1997 and has maintained his position after two other subsequent elections.
A Professional Urban Designer, Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has since his student days been a political being. At Secondary School and the University he was the Vice President and later President of the Student Movement for Africa Unity. Soon after leaving the University, he joined ranks with the movements which struggled to have the country return to constitutional democracy which had been curtailed by the Coup of December 31st 1981.
A Member of the now ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) he acted as a Regional Coordinator of his party from 1994-1996. In 1997, when his party was in the Minority (opposition) in Parliament he was the Secretary to that Caucus. That was up to 2000 when the NPP won the national election of December 2000 and subsequently controlled both the Executive and Parliament.
Between 2001 and 2002, he was the 1st Deputy Majority Whip. In 2003, he rose to become the Majority Chief Whip and has continued in that position till the second triumph of the NPP and the inauguration a new Parliament in January 2005. In 2005 he was once again named Majority Chief Whip a position he held till July 2007 when he was elevated to the post of Deputy Majority Leader and later to the position of Minister of State at the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.
In Parliament, Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has since 1997 severed on such Select Committees as Lands and Forestry; Works and Housing; Youth, Sports and Culture; Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and such Standing Committees as Subsidiary Legislation; Business; Special Budget; and House.
The Honourable Member has had considerable international exposure by the number of Workshops and Conferences he has attended including a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) meeting in New Zealand; UK Branch visit, London in June 2005; Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) Conferences, Burkina Faso in September, 2001, Morocco in 2002, Chile in 2003, Philippines in 2005, Kenya in July 2006, Switzerland in October 2006; and National Conference of State Legislatures in United States of America (U.S.A), Denver, Colorado in 2002, Salt Lake City in 2004, Seattle in 2005, Nashville in 2006, Boston 2007.
He attended the inaugural conference of the Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC) in Ottawa in 2002 and the recent meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, Tanzania 2006.
Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu was the Leader of Ghana’s Representative to the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) Parliament which is headquartered in Abuja, Nigeria, Nigeria from 2002 till July 2007 and in that capacity represented the sub regional Parliament in several capacities and at several places and programmes.
He has also served as a resource person on behalf of both Ghana’s and ECOWAS Parliament at several Workshops.
Category: Biography
