J. K. Siaw

Joshua Kwabena Siaw, popularly known as J. K. Siaw (January 1923 – October 1986), was a Ghanaian industrialist and philanthropist, who in 1969 established Tata Brewery Ltd. – now known as Guinness Ghana Breweries, also as Achimota Brewery Company (ABC). He is notable for opening the largest wholly African-owned brewery company in West Africa in 1973. In 1979 all his assets were confiscated by the AFRC regime of Ghana under false allegations of tax evasion. He died in London, in exile, in October 1986.

Joshua Kwabena Siaw was born in Obomeng in January 1923. His father came from Akwaseho and his mother from Juaben in the Ashanti Region. J. K. Siaw worked with his father on a cocoa farm before attending school aged 12, in 1935, and took to basket-making as a way to make more money to further his own education.

In 1942, aged 19, Siaw became a teacher of Standard One class in Akwaseho. After a couple of months he went to work at the Orthodox Mission School and then to the Bremang Gold Dredging Company near Bogoso, in Ghana's Western Region. After just one month, he went to Effiduase Banko to work again as a teacher from June 1943 to March 1945. Siaw then went to work at the New Juaben Grammar School but left after a year because the headmaster, Mr. Sarkodea, was mismanaging the school. Siaw established Christ College in 1946 with his father, before apprenticing with a pharmacist for a year. Christ College evolved into Ghana Secondary School in Effiduase by 1976.

Siaw then decided to go into business and borrowed £50 (£1500.00 in 2013 relative value) to start up as a cocoa broker. In four months he had made £600 (£18,000.00 in 2013 relative value) profit. In April 1950 he became a siding clerk at Kwahu Praso, transporting cocoa to Accra, Ghana's capital. He repaid the £200 security charge for the clerking employment with interest in six months and was bound for a further six months, by contract, but he decided to stay for only four. In 1953 he worked as a siding clerk, this time for the Cocoa Purchasing Company, which paid £6 a month. He became a cocoa and timber transporter in 1954.

In 1957, he began selling enamelware until the Government of Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah banned the importation of those goods.

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