Book on GIMPA launched
A 311-page book cataloguing how the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) was transformed from a public service training institution to a self-financing public university has been launched in Accra.
Authored by the first Rector of the institution, Professor Stephen Adei, the book, titled: The GIMPA Story, shows how the institution was turned into a centre of excellence in leadership, management and administration.
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The book, with 16 chapters, was launched by a former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, alongside two other books authored by Professor Adei.
The other books are: Managing Your Life and Living By Strategy.
The event was attended by a host of dignitaries, including the immediate past Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Oquaye, and Matilda Amissah-Arthur, the wife of late former Vice-President, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur.
Tribute
Professor Akosa paid glowing tribute to Professor Adei for the able manner he steered the affairs of GIMPA, of which he is a product.
"I think GIMPA has affected a lot of people," he stated.
Professor Akosa said The GIMPA Story was the best practical leadership book he had read and recommended it for persons at the managerial and senior levels in public and private institutions.
The two other books too, he said, were also a must read.
Reasons
Professor Adei said The GIMPA Story had to be told because of the demand for it.
In addition, he said, one of the reasons why he wrote the book was the uniqueness of the story.
That, he explained, laid in the fact that it was possible to run a public university without subvention.
He said he thought it was not right for tertiary education to be universally free, be it nursing, teacher training or universities.
"The GIMPA Story had to be told to celebrate the only statement I am globally known for: ‘Leadership is cause, everything else is effect’.
"Restricting myself to public tertiary education, The GIMPA Story shows that governing councils of public universities are not unduly filled with party ideologies," he stated.
A columnist of the Daily Graphic, Anis Haffar, who reviewed the book, said the literary was valuable and must be exploited from all angles.
He said Prof. Adei provided enough experiential resources to show chief executive officers "where to go and how to get there”.
"Additionally, it tracks the pitfalls to avoid, like corruption, nepotism, intellectual laziness and political interference," he added.
The Chief Executive Officer of Smartline Limited, publishers of the book, Elliot Agyare, said the book was important in that it offered readers unique and alternative styles of leadership.
