UK’s New Prime Minister Liz Truss Appoints Ghanaian-British Politician, Kwasi Kwarteng as Britain's New Finance Minister

Britain's new Prime Minister Liz Truss has appointed business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng as the new finance minister, her office said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP @KwasiKwarteng has been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer @HMTreasury.#Reshuffle pic.twitter.com/6YQy0YuQPs

— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) September 6, 2022

Kwarteng, an ideological ally of Truss, has said that her government can afford to borrow more to fund support to households and businesses on their energy bills, but it will remain responsible with the public finances.

He had been business and energy minister since January 2021, previously holding a junior role in the department, and he also worked in the Brexit ministry.

Like Truss, Kwarteng has expressed his admiration for former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but has shown some pragmatism in applying those principles in his previous roles in government. 

Kwarteng was born in east London to parents who migrated from Ghana as students in the 1960s, and was educated at Eton then Cambridge, where he completed a PhD on a 17th-century crisis with English silver currency. A Kennedy scholarship at Harvard followed, before work in finance at JP Morgan and Odey Asset Management, run by the Brexit-backing investor Crispin Odey.