| Intro | Former Ghanaian Minister of State |
| Is |
Politician Land surveyor |
| From | Ghana |
| Type |
Engineering Politics |
| Gender | male |
| Death |
8 November 2013, Accra |
Harry Sawyerr (25 April 1926 – 8 November 2013) was a Ghanaian politician and quantity surveyor.
Sawyerr was the first person to be president of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors. He served two terms spanning 1969 to 1971.
He was among the founders of the United National Convention formed to contest the 1979 parliamentary election. He however left the party to stand as an independent candidate and became a Member of Parliament in the Third Republic Parliament.
Background
Harry Sawyerr was born on 25 April 1926 in Abokobi, Accra, in the Ga East District to Kwao Sawyerr and Fredericka Naa Awula Akua Lokko. He was educated at the Presbyterian Primary School at Abokobi (1932), continuing in 1938 to Salem Boys School (now known as Osu Presbyterian Boys School), then at Accra Academy (1942–46). He entered Achimota College in 1947, but his degree studies ended on the sudden death of his father that year, due to lack of funds, and he became a Learner Valuer at the Lands Department from 1951 to 1953. He subsequently studied estate management in England at the University College of Estate Management (1953–55), becoming a certified associate of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, in England. He worked as a District Valuer at the Lands Department in Accra (1955–58), then left public service to establish his private consultancy from 1958 to 1962. From 1962 to 1963 he was City Valuer at Kumasi City Council and worked as Chief Federal Lands Officer in the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 1963 to 1967, the first black Chief Federal Lands Officer in Nigeria.
Sawyerr served as Minister for Transport and Communications from 1979 to 1981 in the Limann government. He also served as Minister for Education in the Rawlings government from 1993 to 1997.
Death
He died on 8 November 2013 in Accra, aged 87.
Awards and recognition
Harry Sawyer was decorated with the Companion of the Order of the Volta, the highest award in Ghana, by the then President John Evans Atta Mills
There are prizes at the University of Ghana Medical School in his name.