Paper short abstract:

The neoliberal approach to economic management became the regime that imposed market discipline on Ghana's the ruling elites in 1983 through the Bretton Woods sponsored Structural Adjustment Programme which provided the broad framework for the Economic Recovery Programmes.

Paper long abstract:

The thoroughness with which the PNDC military junta subjected the country to the discipline of the forces of neoliberalism made it a cynosure of African states contemplating neoliberal programmes of economic revival. Reflection on Ghana's experience with neoliberalism shows that there is more to such plaudits than meets the eye. As noted by Akonor (2012) there were times when the PNDC did not comply with the discipline of the neoliberal doctrine as packaged by the IMF. The 1987 PAMSCAD stands out in this respect (Gayi, 1995). In addition to PAMSCAD in 1993/94 the Ghana Government resisted IMF pressures to fully liberalize the marketing of cocoa. Up to this day, Ghana remains the only major cocoa producing country without a fully liberalized marketing system (Vigneri and Santos, 2007) (Anang, 2011). In 1997 the Public Utilities and Regulatory Commission was established (Government of Ghana, 1997) to fix prices in the utility industry. All these elite institutional interventions in the market imply that in as much as the neoliberal doctrine disciplined elites in Ghana, they also attempted to discipline the neoliberal regime by inserting institutions of pragmatism into the market. This perspective alters the nature of the experience of African elites in the face of the neoliberal wave in which they are portrayed as passive actors. The examples cited above gives reason for the pattern, source, and effects of the agency of African elites to be fully understood as an important aspect of the neoliberal experience in Africa.

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