Joe Baidoo-Ansah

Joe Baidoo-Ansah is a journalist and human rights activist who served in President Kufuor's governments as Minister for Aviation and Minister for Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and Presidential Special Initiatives, and represented Effia-Kwesimintsim and then Kwesimintsim in the Western Region for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) from 2001 to 2017.

Journalist and activist

Baidoo-Ansah was named Best Investigative Journalist by the Ghana Journalists Association in 1994. In 1991 he co-founded the Ghana Committee on Human and Peoples' Rights with Nana Akufo-Addo, Joe Ghartey and others, and became its executive director. He was an organiser for the Movement for Freedom and Justice, working with Professor Adu Boahen and others in the pro-democracy campaign of the 1980s and 1990s.

Minister and MP

He won Effia-Kwesimintsim in 2000 and represented it until it was split in 2012, then held the new Kwesimintsim seat until 2017. Under Kufuor he was Deputy Minister for Tourism and Diaspora Relations before his cabinet posts. In Parliament he chaired the Youth, Sports and Culture and the Communications committees and sat on the Appointments Committee. Philip Fiifi Buckman of the NDC holds Kwesimintsim today.