In 2003 Ghana’s government passed laws to protect its beleaguered farmers from the overwhelming flood of imports – and then, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, was forced to backtrack, leaving millions of its people to fend for themselves.
An elected body acting responsibly, responsively and in the very urgent interests of its people, only to then be derailed by external forces. Is this really what democracy looks like?
'How can we compete? It is like Manchester United coming here to play a local team, with no boots, no training, no support. How many goals would they score?'
Mohammed Adam Nashiru – the president of Ghana's Peasant Farmer Association (PFA) – is angry.
'It is like Manchester United coming here to play a local team. How many goals would they score?'
For him and the more than 15,000 Ghanaian farmers he represents, imported rice is 'a killer'. Local farmers lose out in the face of better quality, often subsidised rice from America, Vietnam and Thailand.
Government u-turn
Through organisations such as the PFA, Ghana's farmers had been calling on the government for the help and support they need to become competitive.
In 2003 the government heard them. A budget, unanimously passed by Ghana's parliament, increased import taxes on vulnerable farm products, including rice and poultry, so that local producers would have a slightly better chance against foreign competitors.
But before this democratic decision could be carried out, the international community, in the form of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stepped in and blocked it.
It advised the government that increasing import taxes was not good economic policy for Ghana. And as the IMF holds the purse strings – aid, credit and debt relief make up around 40 per cent of the country’s national income – ignoring this advice was not an option.
This enforced u-turn actually went against Ghana's constitution and with the help of the Accra-based Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL), supported by Christian Aid partner ISODEC, the farmers launched a legal challenge against the government. But to head off a constitutional crisis, the government simply repealed the original law, casting it into the void.
As CEPIL’s Dominic Ayine explains, the case raises a fundamental issue. ‘It is the right of Ghana’s democratically elected government to take its own decisions and of parliament to scrutinise those decisions and be kept informed of progress.
‘This is something that has been undermined by international pressure in this case.’
The struggle goes on
Because of the IMF’s intervention, rice and other industries that had provided vital income in Ghana are collapsing, devastating the poor rural areas in the north of the country especially.
In a rich country there would be other ways of making money, or at least support from the state to cover essentials. In Ghana there is only increasing desperation, particularly in the north.
Around three-quarters of the people there are underemployed. Their children are going to the cities in search of work which doesn't exist. As people’s incomes fall, their ability to pay for fertiliser and water and everything else they need to farm efficiently falls, sending them spiraling further into poverty.
The frustration of people like Abdul Rahaman Danizogo, a rice and vegetable farmer who is trying to put three children through secondary school, is all too apparent: 'We need help!' he says. 'There is a neglect!'
The PFA and other organisations are trying to focus this anger and frustration. They are calling for their government to find the courage to stand up to the IMF, so that they can support their own farmers.
Christian Aid is campaigning for reform of the IMF and World Bank to stop them controlling poor countries in this way. We argue that trade justice has to mean allowing poor countries the flexibility to defend themselves and their producers.
Ghana is not the poorest of the poor. It is a peaceful, stable, democratic country with great potential. But without trade justice that potential may never be realised.