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Abstract
Flt. Lt. J.J. Rawlings and his fellow ‘revolutionaries’ waged a sustained campaign against established Ghanaian entrepreneurs, insisting that they were corrupt. This narrative is misleading. The prime motive of these self-styled revolutionaries was to de-capitalise political opponents – a goal that they largely accomplished through control and manipulation of the state apparatus. During the 1990s, the same people who had launched a quasi-revolutionary campaign against Ghanaian capitalists became the most successful businesspeople in Ghana. This paper sheds light on a profound, yet ultimately transitory, revolution in Ghana that has largely escaped detailed scholarly examination.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments and to my editor, Roger Charlton, for excellent guidance. I am also thankful to Rhoda Howard-Hassman for commenting on earlier versions of this paper.
Notes
Rawlings first seized power in June 1979, as head of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. Mainly concerned with corruption, the AFRC executed all three ex-military heads of state – Generals A. A. Afrifa, I. K. Acheampong and F. K. Akuffo – and five other military officers for allegedly being corrupt and tarnishing the image of the military. It also confiscated several businesses and brutally assaulted traders (Oquaye, Citation1980; Robertson, Citation1983).
Snapshot annual reports by the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ, Citation1993–1994, Citation1996, Citation1997) raise serious questions about the integrity of the quasi-judicial institutions.
Marino Chiavelli, an Italian businessman, reportedly loaned $1 million to a Ghanaian political party during the Third Republic in return for the award of contracts (New African, December 1982).
The Court ordered: (i) the state-owned Ghana Broadcasting Corporation to accord equal access to both the ruling and opposition parties, (ii) the government to cease requiring prior police permission for public demonstrations, (iii) the regime not to celebrate 31 December [a highly partisan event] with public funds, (iv) the government to change its practices in the election of district chief executives.
The first, created in February 1988, was the Private Sector Consultative Committee. The second, the Private Sector Advisory Group, was convened in 1991. The Bank proposed the idea after concluding that the PNDC was unlikely to consult business as long as the latter was represented by existing BAs, whose leaders Rawlings resented (Opoku, Citation2005).
The original members were the AGI, GNCC, the Ghana Employers Association, Ghana Association of Bankers, and the Federation of Associations of Ghanaian Exporters. New members include the Ghana Association of Consultants and Ghana Real Estate Developers Association.
J.A. Addison's donation of a spacious office complex to the AGI was a prime example (interview, AGI officers).
Consequently, membership in both BAs dropped. While the AGI had 1500 members in 1992 (Hart, Citation1996), this number was down to 500 by 1999 (AGI News, August 1999). Correspondingly, payment of subscriptions tumbled. For example, of the 2481 members listed by the GNCC as of 2000, only 500, or about 20 per cent, had paid their dues or were in arrears of less than six months (interview, GNCC officer).
Kwamena was Minister of Local Government and Rural Development for many years. His last portfolio was Minister of Regional Cooperation. Kwesi headed the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre. Ato headed the National Investigation Committee and the IRS during the PNDC era.
The GNPC had accrued debts totalling several hundred million dollars. In 1994, the government wrote off 14 billion cedis ($124.7 million) owed by the GNPC. This led to a 46 per cent rise in the money supply and fuelled inflation (World Bank, Citation1995).
This allegedly included foreign interests. The NPP government terminated Telekom Malaysia's technical and consultancy agreement with Ghana Telecom in 2001, citing non-performance. The unstated, but probably decisive factor was the alleged collusion between senior NDC figures and Telecom Malaysia.
For readers interested in further details of the NPP government's relationship with business in Ghana, Arthur's work is an excellent piece. This paragraph has benefited from it.