Murietta Patricia Olu-Williams, OBE (née Metzger; born 15 December 1923) was a Sierra Leonean civil servant, the first woman in Africa to achieve the rank of Permanent Secretary in the Civil Service.[1][2]

Life

Murietta Olu-Williams was born on 15 December 1923, the only daughter of Dr. G. N. Metzger, a Freetown doctor of Creole heritage.[3] She was educated at the Freetown Secondary School for Girls,[4] where she was a pupil of Hannah Benka-Coker.[1]

In 1950 she joined the Civil Service as a supervising teacher for the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Education. In 1962 she transferred from the professional to the administrative service, becoming the first female Permanent Secretary.[1] She served in three ministries in this capacity. While at the Ministry of Transport and Communication, she pioneered the creation of parastatals: the Road Transport Co-operation and the Sierra Leone Ports Authority.[4]

In 1966 she was awarded an OBE for her services as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Communications.[5] On 25 August 1969 she was admitted to the Middle Temple.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kenneth Little (1973). African Women in Towns: An Aspect of Africa's Social Revolution. CUP Archive. pp. 207–8. ISBN 978-0-521-09819-9.
  2. ↑ 'Portrait', West Africa, 3 August 1963, p.857
  3. 1 2 Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, Vol. 5, p.48. Accessed 1 July 2020.
  4. 1 2 Christiana A. M. Thorpe, The Rebel War Years were Catalytic to Development in Social Advancement of Women in Post-War Sierra Leone, PhD Thesis, St Clements University, 2006, pp. 21-2
  5. ↑ "No. 43857". The London Gazette. 1 January 1966. p. 45.
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