Economist and Political Risk Analyst, Dr. Theo Acheampong is billed to deliver the 2023 Baah-Wiredu Memorial Lectures under the theme: ‘’Beyond The Haircut: The Prospects For Investment And Public Finances In Ghana in the Next Decade’’. 

This year’s lecture comes off on 21st September, 2023, and will be broadcast live on JoyNews and Joy 99.7 FM at 2pm prompt.

The Ghana Institute of Public Policy Options (GIPPO) instituted the Baah-Wiredu Memorial Lectures to recognise and immortalise the works of the late Finance Minister, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu who worked under the erstwhile President John Kufuor’s administration.

Mr Baah-Wiredu was the first Finance Minister in Ghana's history to present the country's Budget Statement and Economic Policy to Parliament before the arrival of that fiscal year with his budget for the fiscal year 2006. Since then, successive Finance Ministers have adopted the initiative and presented annual budget statements to parliament in similar manner.

This year’s lecture is the 8th edition. Among the past Speakers are vice president of Imani Africa, Bright Simons, who spoke on ‘Buying for the Public Good from the Public Purse’’.

Investigative Journalist and anti-corruption crusader, Manasseh Azure-Awine, spoke on ‘’Protecting the Public Purse: The Media and Fighting Corruption in The 4th Republic of Ghana’’.  Legal Practitioner and Law Lecturer Clara Beeri Kasser-Tee, lectured on ‘’The Citizen and the Protection of the Public Purse’’.

Instituted in 2014, Development Economist and Politician, Professor George Yaw Gyan-Baffuor, delivered the inaugural lecture under the theme: Fiscal Policy, Accountability and Transparency as Instruments for Effective National Development”.