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                                         PROFILE OF ALHAJI BABAN MATA

 

 

Alhaji Baban Mata was the fourth child of SULEIMAN ABARRY (Baa Danjo) and HADIZA ANGULU SHARDOW (Nman Danjo).  He was born in Accra on the 25th of January 1927. He attended Accra Royal School from 1935 to 1944 and Accra Academy from 1945 to 1947.

In 1947 he enlisted in the colonial Army which was then known as The Royal West African Frontier Force

where he was assigned to the Army Pay Office under the command of Lt-Col A.H. Jones.  

In 1950, having served for two years and three months, he took up an appoinment with the Comptroller and Accountant-General's  Department.  On attaining the rank of Assistant Accountant in 1961,

he was posted to the United Kingdom to setup a unitto handle remittances for Ghanaian students  in the UK on government scholarship.  He remained in the UK until September 1967 when he was recalled to the head office in Accra.

His first national assignment came in February 1972 when he was appointed a member of the Taylor Assets Committee setup by the National Redemption Council (NRC) under the chairmanship of Justice J.N.K. Taylor.  In October 1977,  he was again made a member of a special team setup by the Supreme Military Council to conduct a surprise audit of the accounts of the Ghana embassies and Permanent Missions abroad. This assignment took him to London, Copenhagen,  Brussels, Paris, Geneva, Jeddah,    

Tokyo, Washington and New York.

In 1980, Baban Mata was made the Deputy Comptroller and Accountant-General and remained on that rank until he retired in 1989.  

A few months later in January 1990, he was re-engaged on contract and made the Director of the Staff Development Centre. He resigned from this post on the 1st of June 1992 following a new appoinment by the PNDC which made him a member of the Non-Performing Assets Recovery Tribunal.  He was still serving on this tribunal when he passed away on the night of 20th August 1998.

  During his long career as a public servant, Alhaji Baban Mata had held several other positions.  Between 1972 and 1975 he had been a member of The Railway and Ports Authority Seperation Committee ; The State Organizations Indebtedness Committee; The Legal Aid Board; and The Road Funds Committee.  From 1980 to 1982 he was the Chairman of the National Service Board.

In his service to the Muslim community, he had been a life-time member of the Ghana Muslim Association;  had served on the Hajj Committee; the committee in charge of the construcion of the Abossey Okai Mosque; and had carried out several assignments on behalf of the National Chief Imam.

Alhaji Baban Mata was well known for his love for family.  He was proud of his family heritage and actively participated in family events - marriages, funerals, family meetings, inheritance matters and in any activity that would promote the welfare of the family.  He was ever-ready to assist family members  when it came to  school admissions or employment, especially in the public service.  

His penchant for record- keeping made him become the custodian of the family records.  Furthermore, his rather large collection of personal dairies and notes were replete with detailed descriptions of family events and family history.  It was this mass of information gathered throughout his lifetime and religiously preserved in his personal library  that inspired the creation of this family-tree, and although its been fifteen years since he departed this earth, his finger-prints are quite visible on the pages of this website.

 

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