“A New Ghanaian Century” or A new century of Corruption

Three years ago Ghanaian officials announced with euphoria the finding of off shore oil and gas in commercial quantities. Indeed, officialdom in Accra has the right to be happy; the oil funds, if well managed, would increase the country’s revenues, reduce Ghana’s dependence on foreign capital, reduce Ghana’s over reliance on agricultural exports, increase the size of the economy, and increase the country’s international leverage. To officials in Accra, 2010 and beyond is almost “the new Ghanaian century.” Many Ghanaians envisage a century of prosperity and hope for all.
How would “the new Ghanaian century” be different from Nigeria of the 1960s and 70s? Nigeria in the late 1970s and 1980s was like the Europe of today, at least to Ghanaian travelers to that country. Many Ghanaians returned from Nigeria with a lot of goodies. In fact the influx of Ghanaian migration to Nigeria during that the same period was largely determine by Nigeria’s economic strength at the time, and oil played a very critical role.

The commodity has corrupted the Nigerian government, and as a result pitched Nigerians against themselves. Because of oil, many Nigerians are living in poverty, their lands are confiscated from them, and they don’t receive any assistance from the state or the oil companies. These Nigerians don’t have the right to protest against their state of affairs. As result as they picked up arms and started fighting against the very people whose responsible it is to protect them against international oil companies. The very existence of the corporate entity called Nigeria is threatened to the extent that certain ethnic groups in Nigeria are systematically and symbolically banned from holding the country’s highest office. Was the oil find good for Nigeria? Your guess is as right as mine.

Why would the Ghana’s oil discovery be different from Nigeria’s? There are two schools of thought that attempted to answer this very important question. The first group is led by the Castle in Accra. It seems both the NPP and NDC administrations have imbibed and sometimes articulated the same argument. They contend that Ghana is a democracy, lead by a new group of African leaders who eschew corruption, and with the right legal and institutional framework, it could evolve creative methods of revenue sharing, and environment protection. These, they argue, will eliminated corruption in the sector and thus reduce the tendency for sectarian violence.

Yet, Ghana will start receiving revenues from the oil export this year, but it does not have, the much talked about frameworks in place. As times pass, and people do not raise any objections, the process get forgotten and the corruption starts. Besides, even if Ghana created such a framework, it does not guarantee the system against corruption, and insides deals. A case in point is the Ghana Telecom and Vodafone deal.

Osei Boateng wrote an excellent piece published in the New Africa Magazine of January this year titled “How the British got Ghana Telecom for Vodafone.” Osei argued that despite the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) and it rules, the British government was able to twist the arms of the Kufour government, forcing the administration to bypass Ghanaian laws and institutions to sell Ghana Telecom to Vodafone. Even when Vodafone was out bided by Telekom South Africa.

“The DIC was elbowed aside by President Kufour and his office in a blatant disregard of the divestiture laws,” Osei wrote. The article described the numerous meetings held behind closed doors between President Kufour and British officials. It also explained how the chairman and the secretary of the DIC were dragged to sign Sale and Purchase Agreement, to totally disguise the involvement of the ruling government in the deal
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In opposition, the NDC promised to take a second look in to the Vodafone deal, but the party reneged on this promise after pressure from the head of the Trade and Investment at the Foreign and Commonwealth office in London. It seems the new NDC government did not want to meddle itself in a controversy it did not create. Hence, the NDC started signaling that it is not interested in abrogating the Vodafone deal even if the process with which the company secured the deal sinks. Vodafone has come to Ghana to stay, no matter what anyone says.

These kinds of external pressure on African government to do wrong will happen even more rampant when it comes to oil companies because the stakes are high, and the financial benefit is huge. Ghanaians are yet to see the framework that both governments promised to establish before the oil revenues. But the tendency for official in Accra and elsewhere in the country to be corrupt is always there, regardless of which party is in office.

The argument that because Ghana is a democracy, the tendency for corruption in the oil industry will be reduced stands up to neither logic nor historical precedent. In the 1980s several democratic government in oil producing Latin American countries were even more corrupt than undemocratic government in the same region.
Besides, the current political and media climate in Ghana is more prone to corruption and back room deals than most would anticipate. It is safe to argue that Ghana is a two party state.

Since 1992 no political party, other than the NDC and the NPP, is able to secure more than 10% of votes. Over 80% of Ghana’s voters are loyal supporters of the two leading parties in the country.

Leaving only about 20% in the middle, about 8 percent of which supports the smaller parties in the country. Ghana is a very partisan country, our party allegiances determine which news papers we read, and the kind of friends we like to hangout. Ghanaian will defend the party they support even if the party position is totally out of line.

It is therefore very easy for the global oil empire to control the political system in Ghana. Like the Game theory in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, all it has to do is create an artificial dilemma by spending enough money on the two leading parties as to discourage them from defecting and point accusing fingers at the other. It then becomes a disincentive for both parties to campaign on issues detrimental to the corporation’s interest because doing so would mean exposing themselves too.

The Country’s partisan nature is even more pronounced in the media than anywhere else. Apart from a very few individual media houses in the country, the rest are either pro-NPP or pro-NDC news papers, radio stations, or TV stations. The crack between the pro-NPP and pro-NDC media is so deep that all of them are willing to do whatever it takes to defend their respective parties.

A typical example is the Kufour hair salon loan. Even thought all the evidence pointed to the fact that the government made serious mistakes, and as a result the state lost some money. It did not prevent Kwaku Baaku, and the pro-NPP media from projecting the position of the Kufour administration as if it were only truth. Control the two leading parties in Ghana, and you control majority of the media.

It is very easy for international oil corporations or even foreign governments to control a country’s resources by simply controlling its political players. Thus creating a reverse Neocolonialism; government by the people but for the masters. Democracy, it seems, could turn out to be the very reason why the oil find that has the potential of creating “A new Ghanaian Century,” could as well be a rational for a century of corruption of unimaginable proportion.

Abdul Sidibe
agolumusah@yahoo.com