Yaw Osafo-Maafo is a Ghanaian politician who was appointed in April as the senior presidential advisor to the Akufo-Addo Administration 2021.
He was Member of Parliament for Akim Oda from 1997 to 2009, and previously served as Finance Minister and in other cabinet roles in the Kufuor Administration between 2001 and 2009.
He is the past vice-president of the executive committee of the West African Bankers' Association, and a founding Deputy Chairman of the Ghana Stock Exchange.
He has served as chairman and a board member on a number of corporations including Nestle Ghana Limited, National Trust Holding Company, Merchant Bank Ghana Limited, National Development Planning Commission, Divestiture Implementation Committee and Donewell Insurance.
With respect to sports, his reorganization and restructuring of the finances and management of football in the country played a significant part in helping Ghana qualify for the 2006 World Cup.
[10] Osafo-Maafo in more recent times worked as a consultant for the World Bank advising the Ministry of Finance and the Legislature of the government of Liberia.
In February 2015, a secret audio tape capturing a male voice resembling that of Osafo-Maafo expressing ethnocentric comments in the Asante dialect went viral in the media and on the internet.
[14] In his defense, Osafo-Maafo told the media "he remembers speaking at a forum not too long ago but doubts if the alleged content of the tape is representative of all that he said there.