“Ghana must Progress, but we are Really Suffering”: Bui Dam, Antipolitics Development, and the Livelihood Implications for Rural People

ABSTRACT

In late-2013, Bui Dam was commissioned on Ghana’s Black Volta River. The hydroelectric project inundated 444 km², flooding communities, forests, crops, and a national park. State elites promoted the dam through nationalistic discourses while simultaneously framing rural people responsible for accessing its trickle-down economic benefits. Drawing from critical development literature within a political ecology framework, this article examines tensions between discourses underpinning construction of Bui Dam and the lived experiences of rural people. Drawing from data collected in 82 interviews, the dam’s implications for resettlement, food security, mental health, agricultural production, and fishing livelihoods are detailed. I argue interlocking discourses, laws and processes—from eminent domain and compensation metrics to party politics—combined to work as an “antipolitics machine.” Hydroelectric development renders invisible structural processes shaping inequality and creates new injustices. As Bui Power Authority, the corporation managing the dam and surrounding land-uses has a new CEO, the article concludes with several practical suggestions for improving community members’ everyday lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Ghana
• hydroelectric development
• livelihoods
• mental health
• nationalism
• political ecology

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the many people who contributed to this research, including Kelly Afful, Grace Yeboah-Asuamah, Bernadette Atosona, Augustus Chang, Stephen Diko, Emmanuel Effah, David Ferring, Alexus Lizardi, Coryanne Mansell, Gillian Morello, Jo Pucilla, Alec Roth, Carrie Taylor, and Christopher Wilson. This work was supported through Rutgers University’s School of Ecological and Biological Sciences and the Center for Global Advancement and International Affairs. Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and generous Ghanaians who shared their time and experiences with me.

Notes

Compared to Akosombo Dam, which the Ghanaian government funded 50%, domestic funds supported only 10% of Bui.

Neoliberalism is an ongoing, global project seeking to expand conditions for capital accumulation through discourses and practices of deregulation, decentralization, and privatization (Ojeda 2012).

Political ecology studies from Ghana have largely focused on local-level resource management, including agricultural practices (Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Benzer-Kerr 2015) and labor (Awanyo 2001).

Nick Ankudey, Head of Ghana’s Wildlife Division, argued Bui would improve ecological conditions. When Daniel Bennett, who researched under the Wildlife Division since 1994, created a website detailing the dam’s possible impacts on hippos, Ankudey terminated Bennett’s park access, claiming Bennett’s research was no longer in “the national interest” (Anane 2001). Our respondents reported Wildlife Division officials provide muscle for BPA when “matters need to be settled.”

Characterizations of China as exploitative may misrepresent the scale of Chinese interventions in Africa while silencing the ongoing exploitative interventions of Western nations (Ayers 2012).

A massive irrigation project (>30,000 hectares) northeast of the dam is proposed as an “economic free zone,” suggesting corporations will benefit, not local farmers (BPA 2012).

Interviews were conducted by a team of Ghanaian and American students and myself.

Article 20 of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution contains the legal framework for eminent domain.

Sinohydro was bound by international standards for socio-environmental assessment due to (1) previous assessments by European companies and construction consultation by Coyne et Bellier, and (2) Ghana’s reference to international standards in national environmental laws (Hensengerth 2013).

A total of 1216 people were resettled.

BPA appropriated land for dam construction and inundation, as well as transmission lines, buildings, and other infrastructure.

In 2017, farmers also struggled with crop damage from cattle.

Some interviewees referred to DDT while others mentioned “chemicals” more generally.

Flooding also affected wild animal populations, impacting bush meat availability, another important protein source.

The need for stronger democratic institutions is not limited to Ghana. In the United States, vast socioeconomic inequality, racism, suffering, state-sponsored discrimination, etc. are (re)produced and maintained by processes like those described here, including politicians’ prioritization of corporate interests at public expense (e.g., Dunbar Ortiz 2014; Safransky 2014).

The BPA CEO who resigned in January 2017 is brother to former NDC Vice President Amissah-Arthur.

Many of these ideas came from respondents.