Kennedy Ohene Agyapong is MP for Assin Central
• Assin Central lawmaker says he was worth over a million dollars in his thirties
• According to him, it wasn’t until 33 years that he enrolled in a university
• He eventually abandoned his school to come back and save his business
Lawmaker, businessman and media mogul, Kennedy Agyapong, has given insights about how he built himself to become a successful businessman, stressing that it took years of hard work and honesty.
GhanaWeb monitored comments he made last week at a lecture held at the University of Professional Studies, Accra; to commemorate his 61st birthday.
Agyapong said he only enrolled in the university at age 33 and that was purposefully because he was hoping for a role in the government of the then-New Patriotic Party flagbearer, Professor Albert Adu Boahen.
He entered Fordham University in the United States at a time he had done several petty businesses back home and also at a point worked three jobs when he arrived in the United States in search of greener pastures.
“Even when I was at Fordham University, I had over 1 million dollars in my account at Agric Bank in Ghana here and my business (was growing),” he told the congregation which comprised largely of students.
He then lamented the hurdle of getting genuine people to run a person’s business for them amid issues of dishonesty: “…as you grow and come up or my colleagues here that are into business will tell you the level of dishonesty in this country when you are doing business.
“In my absence, those I left behind collapsed my business and I had to leave, so I stopped the school, the third year going to the fourth year and after twice appearing on American ‘Who is Who,’ I left and I remember my dean, Professor Houston, calling my house, telling my wife to convince me to come back to school,” he added.
Agyapong at the time, approaching his forties, said he returned home and was able to salvage what was left of his investments before building the empire that he has today.
He tasked students to hold on to the twin values of hard work and honesty – that those were key tools to making it in life.