Sir Sam Jonah, a business magnate, has officially denied rumours that he is in the hunt to be former President John Mahama’s running partner in the 2024 elections.
The previous Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited chairman has stated that he is not interested.
“Anyone who knows me well will attest to the fact that I have no interest whatsoever in going into the murky world of politics,” he remarked on Metro TV’s “Good Evening Ghana.”
He said that in the 1990s, he turned down invitations to be Vice President under former President Jerry John Rawlings.
“As a matter of fact, if I was interested, I would have been Vice President in 1992 and 1996 when I was offered the position on a silver platter,” he explained.
Some media sites predicted that Mr Jonah might be Mr Mahama’s running mate for the NDC, but he dismissed the suggestion as “worthless speculation.”
Mr. Jonah is regarded as a global business figure around the world. He was named Chief Executive Officer of Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited in 1986 and managed the company’s transformation from a single mine to a worldwide corporation.
Ashanti Gold, which was already listed in London and Ghana, became the first African firm to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1996.
When AngloGold Ashanti Ltd combined with AngloGold Limited in May 2004, he became Executive President of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd (the world’s second-largest gold producer).
Queen Elizabeth II, the Commonwealth’s Head, bestowed on him an Honorary Knighthood as Knight Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 2003.
He received Ghana’s highest national honour, the Companion of the Order of the Star, in 2006.
CNN and Time Magazine named him one of the world’s top 25 most important business people in December 2004, establishing worldwide standards for management, ethics, marketing, and innovation.
He has five Lifetime Achievement Awards, the most recent of which was the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award.
