Enoch Teye Mensah


Enoch Teye Mensah is a politician. He was a Minister for Education and a Member of Parliament in Ghana He is popularly referred to as E. T. Mensah.

Biography

Mensah studied accounting at the SNAPS College of Accountancy, completed his studies there in 1968.
During the time of the PNDC military regime in Ghana, he was for a long time the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, akin to being the Mayor of the City of Accra. He joined the National Democratic Congress when it was formed in 1992. At the beginning of the Fourth Republic, he was appointed Minister for Youth and Sports by President Jerry Rawlings. Mensah held that position through both terms of the Rawlings government. He also stood for the Ghanaian parliamentary election in 1996 and was elected MP for the Ningo-Prampram constituency, holding the seat for almost a decade. After the NDC lost the 2000 elections, he continued as a member of parliament. He was the Minority Chief Whip in parliament prior to the Ghanaian parliamentary election in 2008. In January 2009, he became the Majority Chief Whip in parliament. In January 2010, after a cabinet reshuffle, President John Atta Mills appointed him Minister for Employment and Social Welfare.
Mensah was a member of the Pan-African Parliament until January 2009, when he resigned after being appointed a member of state. In January 2011, he was appointed Minister for Education following the resignation of Betty Mould-Iddrisu.
On 21 November 2015 he lost the NDC primaries to Sam George.
E. T. Mensah was awarded the Companion of the Order of the Volta by President Kufuor's government.

Personal life

Mensah is married with seven children. One of them, Jerry Teye Mensah achieved notoriety when he claimed to have been kidnapped in an attempt to cover his absence from Mfantsipim School. He later had to leave the school for Mawuli Secondary School at Ho, Ghana due to disciplinary problems.