Long before he stepped onto the Greenhill Campus of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Samuel Kwaku Bonsu, Rector of GIMPA, was a determined young man in the Ash-Town neighbourhood of Kumasi. Shaped by the values instilled in him by his mother and grandmother, his path led him through Prempeh College and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and eventually to a professorship at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto.
However, home, as they say, is where the heart is. In 2011, he relinquished the security of his life in North America and returned to Ghana to join GIMPA, driven by a deep conviction to shape public sector leadership.
When he assumed the Rectorship in 2021, the timing presented an existential challenge. Emerging from the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, the self-financing university—reliant on zero government funding—had been severely crippled by an eleven-month campus shutdown. Stepping into leadership meant inheriting financial destitution. Rather than adopting soft measures, Professor Bonsu executed an aggressive strategy of institutional renewal. He consolidated faculties, merging the School of Technology with Social Sciences, and chose to intentionally reduce student numbers to preserve elite educational quality. Though public scepticism flared and media rumours questioned the campus’s vitality, his steady crisis management ensured the university remained solvent and focused on long-term survival.
Under his steady direction, GIMPA did not merely recover; it modernised its entire mandate. He expanded the Institute’s reach into digital public governance, establishing the ground-breaking Centre of West African Studies (CWAS) in collaboration with the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. By securing key international partnerships and extending GIMPA’s influence through the African Management Development Institutes’ Network, he positioned the university at the forefront of administrative excellence for a digital era.
Now, as GIMPA prepares to celebrate its 65th Anniversary on November 11th, the mood is one of quiet triumph and national pride. From post-independence origins to a premier centre for governance, GIMPA’s turnaround stands fully realized. With the high-profile milestone event featuring the anticipated grand presence of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the anniversary honours a story of extraordinary resilience.
