MONROVIA- It was an exciting news for many Liberians both at home and in the diasporas over the weekend when it was announced by African Leadership Magazine that Liberia’s Finance Minister, Samuel Tweah was named African Finance minister of the year, 2020. His name came on top of other Finance Ministers of Africa including South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Angola among others in a vote widely contested.
This means that the performance stands from many indicators, especially recovering form Ebola and COVID-19, with strong driving force on the economy. Minister Tweah has been able to stable the economy in the shortest possible time, as evidenced by some of Liberia’s financial partners statements in recent times.
The African Leadership Magazine Persons of the Year Awards is seen as strong platform that looks at Africans performances and grants awards. It is an independent professional entity based in the United Kingdom. Its votes are based on third-party endorsement on the African continent. Also, it is recorded an upsurge of over 50% votes from the previous year, mainly from Africans within and the Diaspora.
Minister Tweah was named among several African Finance ministers. Out of those whose names came out, he was voted as the best Finance Minister. There were several other participants who won various positions in different categories on the continent on February 26, 2021
In addition to that, the Committee named Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, current Director-General of the World Health Organization, as the African of the year 2020; while Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, as the African Political leader of the year 2020 and Graca Michel, widow of former presidents of Mozambique Samora Michael and Nelson Mandela as the African Climate Champion person of the year 2020. She won the title alongside ten other distinguished Africans in a highly contested poll.
According to the website of the magazine, the poll attracted over 120,000 votes on the ALM website; over 7 million active online engagement during the voting period; and over 5000 votes via email.
The event was done virtually. The recipients were decorated and presented with honor instruments.
The winners were unveiled by the Publisher of the Magazine, Dr Ken Giami, at the U.K. Head Office of the group. The website said, the announcement of the winners was preceded by the awards committee working with the editorial team to collate online and offline votes and submissions from the over One million subscribers/follower base of the publication.
The Publisher, Dr. Giami, maintained that 2020 had been a very turbulent year, with the COVID-19 pandemic stretching Africa’s fragile health systems and exacerbating poverty in the continent. However, he stressed that certain Africans contributed towards minimizing the impact of the pandemic on the continent and helped in inspiring hope for the future.
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