Ghana: the IMF's African success story?

In: Race & class: a journal for black and third world liberation, Volume 29, Issue 3, p. 41-52

Abstract

When Flight Lieutenant J.J. Rawlings and a group of junior officers seized power in December 1981 from the corrupt Peoples National Par ty, their action was widely celebrated throughout Ghana. Their policies for progressive reforms and programme for the revolutionary transfor mation of Ghanaian society marked a high point in the politics of the country, comparable only perhaps with the heyday of Kwame Nkrumah and the Independence Movement.* But now, six years on, many of those involved in the 'December In tervention' have been forced into exile and others have been imprison ed, while national debate and criticism of the Provisional National Defence Council's (PNDC) government (a feature of the early regimen) is being stifled, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is gaining influence over economic policy. The most significant gesture of the PNDC's early commitment to working people was the proclamation of People's and Workers' Defence Committees in the cities and countryside. And it is their radicalising impact that has been slowly eroded since 1983. Initially, these committees, similar to the dynamising groups in Mozambique and Cuba functioned as social and economic units, setting in motion waves of radical popular action aimed at improving living conditions and confronting exploitative foreign companies and local bureaucracies. The consolidation of the popular committees was hindered by the ac tivities of right-wing infiltrators and by ultra-leftist initiatives — pro blems further compounded by numerous attempts, in 1983, to over throw the government. (The committees posed a serious threat to the neo-colonial order and the interests of foreign companies. The US, in particular, made a number of efforts to destabilise the PNDC and the revolutionary process.) Attempts to overthrow the PNDC were followed by government purges and the flight into exile of leading cadres of the Intervention. The popular committees were then restructured and deradicalised, with the emphasis being placed on economic productivi ty and 'national reconciliation'. The national secretariat of the popular committees was also dissolved. All this meant that the organisational base of the progressive movement in the government had been weaken ed. And the corporate power of the army, which Rawlings, particularly, had been so keen to transform into a popular political force, was re- affirmed. Within the PNDC and the Left serious disagreements emerged over a broad range of issues — the nature and pace of social and political change, the role of the army and its corporate power. But the most vex ed question was how to save an economy on the verge of collapse. After the failure to raise capital from non-western sources, appealing to the IMF appeared to most members of the reconstituted PNDC to be the most pragmatic option. Yao Graham, one of the leading figures of the 'December Interven tion', and author of the following article on Ghana's relationship with the IMF, in which he raises central issues about radical transformation in the Third World, is in jail. He has been detained without trial or even official acknowledgement since July 1987. Detained with him are pro minent journalist and broadcaster Kwame Karikari, trade union leader Adu Amankwa, former Secretary for Agriculture Ndebugre, Akoto Ampaw and Kwesi Pratt.