Joshua Kwabena Siaw, a philanthropist and industrialist was born in Ghana, January 1923.  He established the Tata Brewery Ltd which is now Guinness Ghana Breweries.  His achievement in his time was for opening the biggest 100 percent African owned brewery in West Africa in 1973.  Siaw had all his assets seized by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council under allegations of tax evasion and died as an exile in London in 1986.

On the 30th of January 1923, Joshua Kwabena Siaw was born in Obomeng, a small town in the Eastern Region of Ghana,  His mother was from Juaben in the Ashanti region and his father hailed from Akwaseho.  Siaw assisted his father on a cocoa farm as a child resulting in a late start to school at age 12 in 1935.  He began to make baskets and used the revenue to further his education.

In 1964, Siaw put in an application for the setting up of a brewery.  This application was rejected, but undaunted, he re applied in 1967.  This application was also rejected on the grounds that the licenses had been given to Ashanti and Takoradi breweries. Despite being offered an investment of 400,000 cedis from Siaw, Takoradi brewery did not happen.

Siaw applied the third time and was successful.  This application was approved on the 26th of July 1969. “Tata Trading Company” was ready to set up a brewery in Cape Coast in the Central Region.  However, a site that would be suitable for this project could not be found and the project was moved to Achimota, on the Accra-Nsawam Road.

When the National Redemption Council (NRC) government took over they tried to renegotiate the competing interests of the state and tax incentives were offered to manufacturing businesses.

It was the 50th birthday of J.K. Siaw on the 30th of January 1973 and the day of the official opening of Tata Brewery Ltd.  The brewery was opened by Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, the then Head of State.  He said, “It is the single minded and single-handed effort of Mr. J.K. Siaw… which has been responsible for what we see around us today.  Mr Siaw is an excellent example of the innate ability of the Ghanaian to rise to the needs of the occasion.   In Siaw’s words, he wanted “his brewery to stand for centuries to come,” “even longer than the famous Christianborg Castle”.

Tata Company secured the rights to be the exclusive exporters of the Maltex drink to several African countries and was the first brewery to introduce draught beer into Ghana.

Three years after the official commissioning, Tata had 750 Ghanaians, and 4 expatriates employed.  They produced the Tata Pilsner Beer.   In 1977, Siaw and Mr Kwadwo Ohene-Ampofo a lawyer, founded The Modern Continental Bank.  There was a clinic, a canteen serving subsidized meals and free buses to work.  Siaw was planning to put up housing for the workers close to the site.  Free vaccinations were administered to workers and their families.  He presented the Korle bu teaching Hospital with an electro cardiograph and contributed to the building of a hospital in Akwaseho in 1975.