|
Ghana Introduction
Unavailable
Figure 1. Administrative Divisions of Ghana, 1994
WHEN GHANA ACHIEVED INDEPENDENCE from colonial domination in
1957, the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to do so, it enjoyed
economic and political advantages unrivaled elsewhere in tropical
Africa. The economy was solidly based on the production and export
of cocoa, of which Ghana was the world's leading producer;
minerals, particularly gold; and timber. It had a well-developed
transportation network, relatively high per capita income, low
national debt, and sizable foreign currency reserves. Its education
system was relatively advanced, and its people were heirs to a
tradition of parliamentary government. Ghana's future looked
promising, and it seemed destined to be a leader in Africa.
Yet during the next twenty-five years, rather than growth and
prosperity, Ghanaians experienced substantial declines in all of
the above categories, and the country's image became severely
tarnished. Beginning in the early 1980s and continuing into the
mid-1990s, efforts were undertaken to rebuild the government and
the economy and to restore the luster of Ghana's name. It is this
attempt at reconstruction that constitutes the major focus of the
present volume.
The region of modern Ghana has been inhabited for several
thousand years, but little is known of Ghana's early inhabitants
before the sixteenth century. By then, however, the major
population groups were on the scene and in their present locales.
More than 100 separate ethnic groups are found in Ghana today, a
number of which are immigrant groups from neighboring countries.
One of the most important are the Akan, who live in the coastal
savannah and forest zones of southern Ghana. The Akan were living
in well-defined states by the early sixteenth century at the
latest. By the end of that century, the states of Mamprusi,
Dagomba, and Gonja had come into being among the Mole-Dagbane
peoples of northern Ghana. These peoples and states were
significantly influenced by Mande-speaking peoples from the north
and the northeast. In the extreme north of present-day Ghana are a
number of peoples who did not form states in pre-colonial times.
These peoples, such as the Sisala, Kasena, and Talensi, are
organized into clans and look to the heads of their clans for
leadership. Like the Mole-Dagbane, they have been heavily
influenced by Islam, introduced into the region centuries ago by
trans-Saharan traders or by migrants from the north.
The best-known of the indigenous states of Ghana is without
doubt Asante, a term that applies to both people and state.
Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, this Akan-based entity
began to expand from the area around Kumasi, its capital, allying
with or subduing neighboring Akan states such as Denkyira and
Akwapim. Eventually, Asante incorporated non-Akan peoples and
kingdoms, including Gonja, Dagomba, and Mamprusi, into an empire
that encompassed much of modern Ghana and parts of neighboring Côte
d'Ivoire. Along a network of roads radiating from Kumasi flowed
communications, tribute, and, above all, gold, over which the
Asante held a monopoly.
Gold is found in several regions of West Africa, including the
headwaters of the Niger River and the forest zone of modern Ghana.
The West African gold trade was well-established in antiquity, and
it helped tie the peoples of Ghana into a trans-Saharan commercial
network that stretched from the West African forest zone across the
Sahara to ports on the Mediterranean. Aside from providing material
benefits, trade seems to have been one of the major factors in
state formation in Ghana.
Gold drew European traders to the Gulf of Guinea. The first to
arrive in the late fifteenth century were the Portuguese, who set
up an outpost on Ghana's coast. During the next century, the lure
of gold gave way to the slave trade because of the demand for labor
in the Americas. Trading in slaves as well as gold, the Dutch, the
Danes, the English, and the Swedes eventually joined the Portuguese
on what had come to be known as the "Gold Coast." By the early
nineteenth century, the British were the most important European
power on the Gold Coast. Thereafter, the British extended their
control inland via treaties and warfare until by 1902 much of
present-day Ghana was a British crown colony. Ghana's current
borders were realized in 1956 when the Volta region voted to join
Ghana.
British colonial government, while authoritarian and
centralized, nonetheless permitted Ghanaians a role in governing
the colony. This was true not only of central governing bodies such
as the Legislative Council and later the Executive Council, but of
local and regional administration as well. The British policy of
indirect rule meant that chiefs or other local leaders became
agents of the colonial administration. This system of rule gave
Ghanaians experience with modern, representative government to a
degree unparalleled elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.
During the colonial period, the Gold Coast began to develop
economically. Roads, railroads, and a harbor at Takoradi were
constructed. In 1878 a Ghanaian brought cacao pods into the
country, introducing what eventually became the country's major
cash crop. Large-scale commercial gold mining began, and Western-
style education was introduced, culminating in the founding of
University College of the Gold Coast in 1948. The education system
trained a class of Ghanaians that found employment in the colonial
administration. In the twentieth century, this same class
increasingly sought economic, political, and social improvements as
well as self-government, and, eventually, independence for
Ghanaians.
After World War II, the drive for independence began in earnest
under the auspices of the United Gold Coast Convention and the
Convention People's Party, the latter founded by Kwame Nkrumah in
1949. Britain granted independence on March 6, 1957, under a
governor general as representative of the crown and Nkrumah as
prime minister. In 1960 a new constitution created the Republic of
Ghana, the same year that Nkrumah was elected president.
Nkrumah saw Ghana as the "Star of Black Africa." He believed
that Ghana should lead the effort to free Africa from the shackles
of Western colonialism and envisioned a union of independent
African states that would command respect in the world. Nkrumah
also helped found the Non-Aligned Movement, a grouping of world
states that attempted to pursue policies independent of East and
West. His ideas about African unity proved immensely appealing in
the late 1950s and early 1960s; indeed, the Pan-Africanist dream
still resonates across Africa in the 1990s.
Nkrumah's pursuit of pan-Africanism proved expensive and
ultimately futile, and it partially accounts for the economic
problems that Ghana encountered during the early 1960s. More
important, however, were Nkrumah's domestic policies. He believed
in centralization, both political and economic. Constitutional
safeguards against authoritarianism were abolished, political
opposition was stifled, and, shortly after the 1960 elections,
Nkrumah was declared president for life. By the mid-1960s, Ghana
had become a one-party state under a powerful president.
Nkrumah also believed in a rapid transformation of the Ghanaian
economy along socialist lines. He channeled investment into new
industrial enterprises and agricultural projects, nationalized
foreign-owned enterprises, and wherever possible "Ghanaianized" the
public and private sectors. State-sponsored enterprises such as the
Akosombo Dam and the Volta Aluminum Company were undertaken, roads
were built, and schools and health services were expanded. The
former Northern Territories, the northernmost third of the country
which had been neglected by the British, received special attention
in an attempt to address the imbalance in infrastructure and social
services between North and South.
Ghana, however, lacked sufficient resources to finance the
public-sector projects that Nkrumah envisioned. When foreign
currency reserves were exhausted, the government resorted to
deficit financing and foreign borrowing to pay for essential
imports. Trained manpower to allocate resources and to operate old
and new state enterprises was equally in short supply, and internal
financial controls necessary to implement development led almost
naturally to corruption. Despite obvious gains from investment in
roads, schools, health services, and import-substituting
industries, by the mid-1960s Ghana was a nation ensnared in debt,
rising inflation, and economic mismanagement, the result of
Nkrumah's ill-conceived development policies. An overvalued
currency discouraged exports, corruption was increasingly a fact of
life, and the political system was intolerant of dissent and
authoritarian in practice.
In 1966 Nkrumah was overthrown and a military government
assumed power. But neither military nor civilian governments during
the next fifteen years were able to deal successfully with the host
of problems that Nkrumah had bequeathed. In particular, under the
Supreme Military Council (1972-78), Ghana's economic and political
situation deteriorated at an alarming rate. The 1970s were a period
of steadily falling agricultural production, manufacturing output,
and per capita income. Declining cocoa production and exports were
accompanied by a corresponding rise in smuggling of the crop to
neighboring countries, especially Côte d'Ivoire, and largely
accounted for chronic trade deficits. Personal enrichment and
corruption became the norm of government.
Beyond these serious problems loomed much larger issues that
needed to be addressed if Ghana were to resume its position at the
forefront of Africa's leading nations. Among these were the fear of
an overly centralized and authoritarian national executive, the
burden of accumulated foreign debt, and the need to forge a nation
from Ghana's diverse ethnic and regional interests. In particular,
the challenge was to devise a system of government that would
bridge the enormous gap that had developed between the political
center and society at large. For most Ghanaians, the nation-state
by the late 1970s had become a largely irrelevant construct that
had ceased to provide economic benefits or opportunities for
meaningful political participation. As a consequence, local,
ethnic, and regional interests had become much more prominent than
those of Ghana as a whole.
Such were the challenges that lay before the group of military
officers who seized power at the end of 1981. During its first
year, the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) spoke vaguely
about socialism and established people's and workers' defense
committees and extra-judicial public tribunals as a way to involve
Ghanaians in public administration. In 1983, however, the council,
under its leader, Jerry John Rawlings, abandoned its socialist
leanings and negotiated a structural adjustment program with the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as the best and
perhaps only method of rejuvenating the economy. Called the
Economic Recovery Program, it was designed to stimulate economic
growth and exports, to enhance private initiative and investment,
and to reduce the role of the state in economic affairs.
On the one hand, Ghana's structural adjustment program was and
continues to be one of a half dozen models for such programs backed
by international lending agencies. It succeeded in reversing the
downward trend in production and exports, especially in the cocoa,
mining, and timber industries. During the 1980s, gross national
product grew at annual rates of 5 percent or more a year, per
capita income slowly began to rise, and inflation abated. Since
1990, economic growth has slowed, but trends in the economy remain
positive.
On the other hand, Ghana has incurred new debts to finance its
Economic Recovery Program, unemployment has risen, and new fees for
basic services such as education and health care have added to the
burdens of ordinary citizens. Indeed, for many Ghanaians,
structural adjustment has not yet significantly improved their
lives. Additionally, per capita income, while continuing to rise,
is unevenly distributed throughout the population, and private
overseas investment has largely failed to materialize. In Ghana's
case, structural adjustment is clearly a long-term process. Despite
problems and shortcomings, the government of the present Fourth
Republic, which succeeded the PNDC in 1993, remains committed to
it.
Equally significant were steps to devise new political
institutions that would allow a large number of Ghanaians to
participate in governing the country. The creation of defense
committees and public tribunals in the early 1980s were steps in
this direction. In 1988 and early 1989, nonpartisan elections were
held to fill seats in representative assemblies constituted in each
of Ghana's ten administrative regions; similar bodies were
eventually seated in cities, towns, and villages. Thereafter, the
overriding question was what form the national government would
take. After initial reluctance to commit themselves to a multiparty
political system, Rawlings and the PNDC yielded in the face of
domestic and international pressures. In April 1992, a new
constitution that called for an elected national parliament and
chief executive won overwhelming approval in a national referendum.
Political parties, banned since 1982, were the mechanism by which
the system was to work.
Presidential elections were held in November 1992, followed in
December by elections for the 200-member national parliament. After
a heated campaign, Jerry Rawlings was elected president. His party,
the National Democratic Congress (NDC), won control of parliament.
In January 1993, Rawlings and the new parliamentarians were sworn
into office, thereby launching Ghana's fourth attempt at republican
government since independence.
The new political order in Ghana, unfortunately, did not get
off to a happy start. The four opposition parties that had
candidates running in the presidential race charged that fraud and
voting irregularities accounted for Rawlings's victory. When their
demands for a revised voters register were rejected because of cost
and time factors, they boycotted the parliamentary elections. This
stance by the opposition resulted in what is in effect a one-party
republic, which imparts a hollowness to Ghana's latest effort at
democratic government. Although the opposition parties have
accepted the status quo for the time being and have taken on the
role of watchdog even though they are not represented in
parliament, they have continued to press for a new voters list
before elections scheduled for 1996 and remain basically
unreconciled to NDC rule. As a result, the first two years of the
Fourth Republic were marked by a series of skirmishes and quarrels
between the government and the opposition.
In its campaign against the NDC government, the opposition,
resorting to the courts, won several cases against the government
in 1993 and early 1994. Since 1993 a small but vigorous independent
press has developed, which the opposition has used to publicize its
views. Despite publication of what at times have been sensational
or even libelous charges against members of the NDC, including
Rawlings, the government has made no move to censor or suppress
independent newspapers and magazines. Official spokesmen, however,
have repeatedly denounced what they consider irresponsible
reporting in the private press.
In late 1994 and early 1995, controversy over the media
continued unabated. The most contentious issue involved the attempt
to establish a national radio station as an alternative to the
official Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. Known as "Radio Eye" and
dedicated to providing a wider range of political opinion and
information than the government network, it began broadcasting in
November 1994. The government promptly shut it down and seized its
equipment, charging that Radio Eye had not been licensed. The
opposition parties protested that the government's action was an
affront to democratic procedures and turned once more to the
courts, challenging the government's licensing practices and the
constitutionality of its actions.
By early 1995, the case was before the Supreme Court of Ghana.
Meanwhile, in early February the government announced that properly
authorized private stations would begin broadcasting in February.
The large number of license applications received by the
government--more than sixty--indicated the interest in private,
independent radio broadcasting.
Prospects for abatement in the media battles between the
government and its critics were nil, given the degree of antipathy
between the two sides and preparations for national elections in
1996. Even so, both appeared to accept the basic rules of
democratic procedure. In a statement marking the second anniversary
of the Fourth Republic, the New Patriotic Party called on Rawlings
(and the NDC) to respect the 1992 constitution to ensure that this
latest exercise in democracy would succeed. Most significantly, the
statement added, "Let us recognise that the eras of violent and
revolutionary change of government in Ghana are over."
Aside from freedom of the press and speech, other basic human
rights also appeared to enjoy increased respect in mid-1995. There
were persistent reports of police abuse, especially in areas
distant from Accra, as well as of unwarranted detentions, beatings,
and similar infringements of rights, but, in general, the number
and severity of human rights violations continued to decline. The
judiciary in particular showed clear evidence of preserving its
independence, in keeping with Ghanaian tradition and the
requirements of democratic governance.
Such a state of affairs was encouraging, given the role of the
armed forces and the police in Ghana's postindependence history. Of
the ten governments since 1957, six were composed of military
officers who came to power via coups. The PNDC was one such regime,
and even though it handed over power to a civilian, constitutional
government in 1993, the question of the role of Ghana's military in
the Fourth Republic was still an important one. Under the Economic
Recovery Program, funding of the armed forces was reduced and
equipment and facilities were allowed to deteriorate. In
recognition of this fact and of the continuing mission of the armed
forces in matters of defense and international peacekeeping,
Rawlings called for renewed attention to the needs of the armed
forces in his speech marking the second anniversary of the Fourth
Republic in January 1995.
On the economic scene, the government was determined to
continue with structural adjustment. Tight fiscal controls in
central and local government accounts, an essential element in
structural adjustment, had been relaxed as the 1992 elections
approached, leading to an increase in the government deficit,
inflation, and interest rates. Indications were that this situation
had not been brought under control in mid-1995.
Ghana faced other major problems with its Economic Recovery
Program in the mid-1990s as well. These included the progressive
fall in the value of the cedi, the national currency; a high rate
of inflation (more than 30 percent in mid-1995); the lack of
private-sector investment, especially in manufacturing; and rising
levels of unemployment as a result of international competition,
domestic factory closings, and downsizing of parastatals and the
government bureaucracy. Added to these problems were the difficulty
of reconciling the rigors of free-market economic reforms with
popular demands for improved public services and living standards,
and a population growing by well over 3 percent a year.
Preliminary data for the whole of 1994 showed that the country
had achieved a budget surplus, with another anticipated for 1995,
and that gross domestic product adjusted for inflation amounted to
3.8 percent, short of the target of 5 percent but still
commendable. Ghana's trade deficit, however, amounted to US$200
million, with a similar figure projected for 1995. Total
international debt for 1993, the most recent year for which revised
figures were available, stood at US$4.6 billion; its rate of
increase, however, showed signs of slowing. In January 1995, the
government granted a 52 percent increase in the minimum wage under
pressure from the Trade Union Congress.
On the whole, Ghana's economy seemed to be headed in the right
direction in the mid-1990s, even if sustained economic recovery was
not yet a reality more than a decade after introduction of the
Economic Recovery Program and even if the country continued to rely
on cocoa, gold, and timber for most of its foreign currency
earnings. Nonetheless, in spite of real problems, Ghana was still
the model for structural adjustment in Africa in the eyes of
Western lending institutions.
The fragility of the economic and political transition underway
in Ghana in the mid-1990s was evident from events in the spring of
1995. On March 1, the government introduced a new value-added tax
to replace the national sales tax. Set at 17.5 percent of the price
of many commodities and services, the new tax immediately resulted
in rising prices and contributed to an already high rate of
inflation. It thereby added to the deprivation many Ghanaians had
been experiencing for more than a decade under the Economic
Recovery Program. For many, it was simply too much. Discontent
among civil servants, teachers, and others led to street
demonstrations and finally, on May 11, to the largest protest
demonstration in Accra against government policies since Rawlings
and the PNDC came to power. Five people were killed and seventeen
injured in clashes between supporters and opponents of the
government. Demonstrators not only criticized what they considered
harsh economic policies, but some also called openly for Rawlings
to step down.
The protests, organized by opposition parties, provided
Rawlings's opponents with a rallying cry. For the first time since
1992, the Rawlings government appeared politically vulnerable. In
the face of continued protests and increasing doubts about the
viability of the value-added tax, the government in early June
announced plans to replace it with a new national sales tax. In the
meantime, one of the NDC's partners in the Progressive Alliance,
the National Convention Party, withdrew from the alliance in late
May. The party's leaders claimed that it had not been allowed to
participate in affairs of government as had been promised when the
alliance was formed to contest the 1992 elections. The National
Convention Party, therefore, would no longer be bound by the
agreement, and it would feel free to associate with the opposition
if it chose to do so.
In early 1995, Rawlings, as chairman of the Economic Community
of West African States (ECOWAS), continued his efforts to find a
solution to the civil war in Liberia. At a December meeting in
Accra, the major combatants agreed to form a new governing council
and to implement a cease-fire. As of April, however, the combatants
had not been able to agree fully on the new council's membership
despite another meeting in Accra in January, and even the cease-
fire threatened to come unraveled as renewed fighting broke out in
Liberia. So disappointed were Rawlings and other West African
leaders that they threatened to withdraw their peacekeeping troops
if the Liberians continued to obstruct the ECOWAS peace process.
In support of another peacekeeping mission, on March 1, 1995,
Ghana dispatched a contingent of 224 officers and men as part of
its long-term commitment to the United Nations peacekeeping forces
in Lebanon. Other Ghanaians continued to serve as military
observers, police, or soldiers in international peacekeeping
missions in Western Sahara, the former Yugoslavia, Mozambique, and
Rwanda. The warming in relations with neighboring Togo also
continued. After the arrival of a new Ghanaian ambassador in Lomé
in mid-November, Togolese authorities reopened their western border
in December and were expected to name an ambassador to Accra during
1995.
As the home of Pan-Africanism, Ghana hosted the second Pan-
African Historical and Theatre Festival (Panafest) from December 9
to 18, 1994. As with the first Panafest in Accra in 1992, the 1994
festival was designed to foster unity among Africans on the
continent and abroad. Unfortunately, attendance at Panafest 94 was
lower than expected, one reason the festival was somewhat of a
disappointment to its sponsors.
Finally, in early March 1995, Rawlings paid an official visit
to Washington, where he met with President Bill Clinton. The two
presidents discussed a variety of topics, including regional
stability in West Africa and trade and investment in Ghana. Clinton
noted Ghana's prominence in international peacekeeping missions,
especially in Liberia, and pledged continued United States support
for Ghanaian efforts at regional conflict resolution. Rawlings's
visit was the first to the United States by a Ghanaian head of
state in at least thirty years.
By mid-1995, Ghana had emerged at the forefront of change in
sub-Saharan Africa. Its structural adjustment program was a model
for other developing nations on the continent, and its pursuit of
popular, representative government and democratic institutions made
it a pacesetter in the political realm. Endowed with both human and
natural resources and with a political leadership seemingly
determined to reverse decades of economic and political decline,
Ghana had the potential to become one of Africa's leading nations
once again. Whether Ghana would resume its status as the "Star of
Black Africa" envisioned by Kwame Nkrumah, however, remained to be
seen.
August 1, 1995
LaVerle Berry
Data as of November 1994
|
