Profile of suspended Wa Polytechnic Rector, Prof Marfo-Owusu
Professor Emmanuel Marfo-Owusu, a Chemical Cystallogrpher and Supramolecular Chemist, was appointed in January 2017 and inducted last month as the Rector for Wa Polytechnic amidst rich cultural displays.
But, less than one month of his colourful investiture, he has been embroiled in corruption claims by some staff, which compelled the Polytechnic Governing Council to suspend him in a letter dated 5th April pending further investigations.
He had since denied any wrongdoing and insists the purchase of the Mercedes Benz saloon car, which is at the centre of the controversy, went through the right procurement process which he was only part in the voting process.
The voting was 4-3 in favour of the purchase of GH¢503,000.00 car, according to Professor Marfo-Owusu who is a chemical Cystallogrpher as well as a Supramolecular Chemist.
The Ghana News Agency sought to find out who is Professor Marfo-Owusu?
Professor Marfo-Owusu was born on 18th march, 1963 in Accra to the former Chief Executive Officer (1990 – 2000) of Ghana Standards Authority, Rev Professor Kwasi Marfo and Akosua Nyamekye from Nsuta-Kyebi, and Atwima-Yabi in the Ashanti region, respectively.
He started his primary education at community 8 No.2 primary school at Tema in 1969, and passed an entry examination to Aburi Presbyterian Boys Secondary School in 1977.
After passing common entrance examination and completed his secondary education in 1982, and obtained General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level certificate, he moved on to University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), at Ile-Ife, Nigeria after passing joint admission matriculation board (JAMB), a university entry examination.
He pursued Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) degree programme in chemistry and completed in 1987 with B,Sc (Hons) chemistry degree. The topic of his project work or dissertation was: “production of soap using local raw materials,” under the supervision of the late Dr T. Nwosu.
Professor Marfo-Owusu returned to Ghana in 1987 for his national service duties under the National Service Scheme programme where he worked with the soap production unit.
In 1989, he was offered a job at the Ministry of Education in Zambia as an expatriate chemistry teacher and taught chemistry at Linda Secondary School in Livingstone at the Southern Province, and excelled very well in training very good chemistry students.
Having successfully completed his two-year contract in Zambia, he returned to Ghana in 1992 to join Societe -General Services Bank (SGS-B) Ghana limited laboratory in Accra as chemist Assayor who was trained to analyse soil and rock samples for gold and other minerals, as well as analyse water and automobile oil samples.
In 1993, he left SGS –B after being offered a job as a Junior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry in University Transkei (now Walter Sisulu University) where he taught first year general chemistry as well as second year, third year and honours class analytical chemistry.
In the same year, he was admitted for a two-year Master of Science (M.Sce) Degree programme in chemistry by research at the same department of chemistry. His area of research studies was centred on structural studies of Thiourea inclusion complexes under the supervision of the late Professor John Stewart Rutherford (a mathematical crystallographer).
His research study was titled: “Host-guest interactions in Thiourea inclusion complexes,” and employed X-ray crystallography techniques.
The study had applications separation science technology particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. He presented several scientific papers on his research work at crystallography conferences held in Poland, Netherlands, Italy USA, and South Africa.
He has won several awards such as IUCr Young Scientist award to attend crystal growth summer school in Netherlands.
He was appointed Rector of Wa Polytechnic in January 2017 and was inducted on 24th March 2018.
Source: GNA