State Elites and the Politics of Regional Inequality in Ghana A Thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Faculty of Humanities 2012 Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai School of Environment and Development Table of Contents List of Tables 5 List of Figures 5 List of Boxes 6 List of Appendices 6 List of Abbreviations 7 Abstract 9 Declaration 10 Copyright Statement 11 Acknowledgements and Dedication 12 Chapter 1. Background and Introduction 14 1.1 Introduction 14 1.2 Research aim and questions 17 1.3 Case selection: why Ghana? 19 1.4 Ghana: A brief ethno-regional profile 20 1.5 Poverty reduction and regional inequality in Ghana 22 1.6 Theoretical perspectives on persistent regional inequalities 25 1.6.1 Perspectives of economic theorists: states versus markets 26 1.6.2 Regional inequalities and the ‘bad’ geography arguments 28 1.6.3 Persistent inequalities and regime types 31 1.6.4 Political representation and power relations 34 1.6.5 The influence and limits of aid donors 36 1.6.6 Summary 38 1.7 Social exclusion and adverse incorporation: a framework for understanding persistent regional inequalities 39 1.8 Thesis structure 45 Chapter 2. Adverse incorporation, social exclusion and regional inequality in sub-Saharan Africa: towards a methodological framework 48 2.1 Introduction 48 2.2 Regional inequality in Africa: A colonial legacy 48 2.3 Regional inequality and postcolonial African states 51 2.3.1 The neo-patrimonial nature of African states: implications for inequality 51 2.3.2 Postcolonial African states: addressing socio-economic inequalities through political inclusion? 54 2.4 Summary 61 2.5 Research design and methodology 62 2.5.1 Research methods 62 2.5.2 Research design and data 64 2.6 Conclusion 75 Chapter 3. A historical account of power relations and regional inequality in Ghana 76 3.1 Introduction 76 3.2 Ghana and the colonial legacy of regional inequalities 77 3.2.1 Adverse incorporation and Northern underdevelopment 78 3.2.2 Colonial educational policies and the exclusion of Northern Ghana 80 3.2.3 Political exclusion and Northern underdevelopment 82 3.3 The politics of decolonization and rising ethno-regional agitations 84 3.4 The newly independent state and the suppression of ethno-regional agitations 88 2 3.5 Addressing regional inequalities? Socio-economic and political policy responses of post- colonial regimes, 1957-1992 90 3.5.1 Responses in the political system and their consequences 90 3.5.2 Economic policy responses to the North-South inequality 95 3.5.3 Social service provision: A focus on education 101 3.6 Conclusion 104 Chapter 4. The politics of ethno-regional inclusion in Ghana’s Fourth Republic (1993-2008): implications for regional inequalities 108 4.1 Introduction 108 4.2 Ghana’s Fourth Republic: a brief political context 109 4.3 The politics of ethno-regional inclusion 111 4.3.1 Legal and institutional framework for ethno-regional inclusion 111 4.3.2 Regional distribution of political power in Ghana: 1993-2008 112 4.3.3 The regional composition of the Rawlings-NDC governments, 1993-2000 112 4.3.4 The regional composition of the Kufuor-NPP governments, 2001-2008 114 4.4 The politics of representation and regional development in Ghana 119 4.5 The growing politics of patronage in Ghana 121 4.5.1 Electoral competition 122 4.5.2 Political patronage in Ghana: a socio-cultural norm? 125 4.5.3 Excessive executive power 126 4.6 Northern political leaders and Northern underdevelopment 127 4.7 Donor influence 129 4.8 Conclusions 130 Chapter 5. The politics of social service delivery and regional disparities in Ghana 133 5.1 Introduction 133 5.2 Public spending and educational inequalities in Ghana, 1994-2008 134 5.3 Public health spending and regional inequalities 138 5.4 Exploring the politics of public education and health spending in Ghana 142 5.4.1 Education 143 5.4.2 Health 145 5.5 Case Studies on the politics of social service delivery 149 5.5.1 Case Study I: The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) 149 5.5.2 Case Study II: The Model Secondary School Programme 162 5.6 Conclusions 164 Chapter 6. The PRSPs and the politics of excluding the poorest: the case of Ghana’s HIPC Fund 167 6.1 Introduction 167 6.2 Including the historically-excluded Northern regions? The GPRS rhetoric 168 6.3 The Reality of the HIPC Fund: A tool for widening regional inequalities? 170 6.3.1 The GPRS I and Regional HIPC Allocations, 2003-2005 171 6.3.2 The GPRS II and regional HIPC expenditures: a paradigm shift? 174 6.4 The HIPC Fund and Northern exclusion: questioning the official explanations 175 6.5 Understanding the rhetoric-reality gaps of the HIPC Fund: a political interpretation 178 6.5.1 The imperative of winning elections: between patronage and the politics of regional balance 179 6.5.2 Unequal power relations and the exclusion of the North 182 6.5.3 Northern Ghana and the GPRS rhetoric: the politics of securing donor aid? 184 6.6 Conclusion 187 3 Chapter 7. The politics of productive sector investments in Ghana: implications for regional economic disparities 189 7.1 Introduction 189 7.2 Ghana’s Millennium Challenge Account: a brief introduction 190 7.3 The MCA and the politics of beneficiary selection 191 7.3.1 Rural poverty incidence 191 7.3.2 Private sector-led investments 192 7.3.3 Excluding the Upper regions from the MCA: a product of bad geography? 193 7.4 Understanding the distribution of MCA projects: a political explanation 196 7.4.1 Exclusive elite coalitions and the exclusion of the poorest from the MCA 197 7.4.2 Electoral calculus, ideas and ideology? 202 7.5 Excluding the North from productive investments: beyond the MCA 204 7.6 Conclusions 209 Chapter 8. State elites and the politics of regional inequality: conclusions 212 8.1 Introduction 212 8.2 Understanding persistent regional inequalities: the primacy of politics and power relations213 8.3 The politics of resource allocation: why access to political power matters 220 8.4 Conceptual and theoretical implications 226 8.4.1 Understanding persistent regional inequalities from an AISE perspective 226 8.4.2 The African state and the politics of resource sharing 229 8.5 Lessons and policy implications 233 8.6 Concluding remarks and suggestions for future research 238 References 240 Appendices 265 Final word count: 86, 718 words 4 List of Tables Table 1.1: Ghana’s Basic Poverty Indicators, 1992-2006 22 Table 1.2: North-South inequalities in access to basic services 25 Table 3.1: Official Statistics on Schools in the Gold Coast in 1919 81 Table 3.2: North-South Composition of governments (Ministers only), 1952-1988 92 Table 4.1: Regional voting patterns in Ghana, 1992-2008 110 Table 4.2: Distribution of political power relative to population shares (%), 1993-2000 114 Table 4.3: Distribution of political power relative to population shares, 2001-2008 116 Table 5.1: Expenditure/Enrolment Rates, 1997 134 Table 5.2: Public on SHS Education (in GH¢), 2006 and 2007 137 Table 5.3: Per capita GoG health funding by region in 2000 (amounts in ¢) 140 Table 5.4: Percentage deviations between budgetary allocations and actual expenditures (recurrent only) for primary education, 1995 143 Table 5.5: Deviations between budgetary allocations and actual education expenditures (%), 2004-2008 144 Table 5.6: Rate of change in public health facilities and personnel, 1998-2008 146 Table 5.7: Selected socio-economic indicators and GSFP allocations 151 Table 5.8: North-South GSFP expenditures (in thousands GH¢), 2005-2008 151 Table 5.9: List of first 30 beneficiary Secondary Schools for the model school programme 163 Table 6.1: GPRS weighting criteria for regional resource distribution 169 Table 6.2: HIPC Fund Allocations to District Assemblies, 2002 171 Table 6.3: Comparison of Expected and Actual HIPC Expenditures (in million ¢) by Region (2003-05) 172 Table 6.4: Regional HIPC Expenditures (million GH¢) under GPRS II (2006-2008) 175 Table 6.5: Regional HIPC expenditures and ruling party support 180 Table 7.1: Regional distribution of PSI projects 205 List of Figures Figure 1.1: Regional poverty trends in Ghana, 1991-2006 23 Figure 1.2: District-level North-South income inequalities 24 Figure 4.1: The regional composition of the Rawlings-NDC government, 1993-2000 113 Figure 4.2: The regional composition of the Kufuor-NPP government, 2001-2008 115 Figure 4.3: Margins (%) between NDC and NPP presidential candidates, 1992-2008 122 Figure 5.1: Education subsidies 1997 (recurrent expenditures only) 135 Figure 5.2: Annual per child expenditure (in GH¢) for basic education, 2004-2008 136 Figure 5.3: Per capita Recurrent and Development Health 138 Figure 5.4: Regional Per Capita Health Expenditures, 1995-1997 139 Figure 6.1: Expected and Actual per capita HIPC allocations, 2003-2005 average 172 Figure 6.2: Deviations between expected and actual per capita HIPC allocations, 2003-05 average 173 Figure 6.3: Picture of a HIPC toilet facility in the Northern Regional capital, Tamale 181 Figure 7.1: District-level rural poverty incidence in Ghana, 2000 192 Figure 7.2: Cocoa production in Ghana, 1977/78-2007/08 206 Figure 7.3: Value of main non-traditional agricultural export crops, 2000-09 207 5 List of Boxes Box 3.1: The adverse incorporation of Northern politicians and the Northern Railway project 96 Box 5.1: GSFP’s criteria for Beneficiary Selection 150 List of Appendices Appendix 1: List of interviewees 265 Appendix 2: List of political office holders in Ghana, 1993-2008 267 Appendix 3: Regional representation in key bureaucratic positions 281 Appendix 4: Regional distribution of Political power, 1993-2000 282 Appendix 5:Absolute distribution of political power, 2001-2008 283 Appendix 6: Relative distribution of political power (%), 2001-2008 284 Appendix 7: Actual health expenditures, 1995-1997 (in ¢ Million) 285 Appendix 8: Population per doctor by region, 2002-08 286 Appendix 9: Population per nurse by region, 2008 286 Appendix 10: MCA beneficiary regions and districts 287 Appendix 11: Registered projects by sectors, Jan. 2001-Dec. 2007 287 6 List of Abbreviations ADA Avoidance of Discrimination Act AISE Adverse Incorporation and Social Exclusion APRs Annual Progress Reports AR Ashanti Region BAR Brong Ahafo Region BECE Basic Education Certificate Examination CEPA Centre for Policy Analysis CPP Convention Peoples Party CR Central Region CWIQ Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire DAs District Assemblies DCE District Chief Executive DFID Department for International Development (UK) EEI Expenditure-Enrolment Index ER Eastern Region ERP Economic Recovery Programme GAR Greater Accra Region GCR Gold Coast Regiment GES Ghana Education Service GHS Ghana Health Service GLSS Ghana Living Standards Surveys GoG Government of Ghana GPRS I Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy GPRS II Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy GSFP Ghana School Feeding Programme GSS Ghana Statistical Service HIPC Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative IDA International Development Association IFIs International Financial Institutions IMF International Monetary Fund JHS Junior High School JSS Junior Secondary School MCA Millennium Challenge Account MDBS Multi Donor Budget Supports MoFA Ministry of Food and Agriculture MoFEP Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning MoH Ministry of Health MoTI Ministry of Trade and Industry MPs Members of Parliament NDC National Democratic Congress NDPC National Development Planning Commission NLC National Liberation Council NLM National Liberation Movement NORPREP Northern Region Poverty Reduction Programme NPP New Patriotic Party NR Northern Region NRC National Redemption Council NRGP Northern Rural Growth Programme NTC Northern Territories Council NTs Northern Territories of the Gold Coast ODI Overseas Development Institute PAMSCAD Programs of Action to Mitigate the Social Costs of Adjustment PDA Preventive Detention Act PIP Public Investment Programmes 7 PNDC Provisional National Defence Council PNP Peoples National Party PP Progress Party PRSPs Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers PSIs President’s Special Initiatives REDP Rural Enterprise Development Project SADA Savannah Accelerated Development Authority SAPs Structural Adjustment Programmes SEND Social Enterprise Development Foundation SHS Senior High School SMC Supreme Military Council SSA sub-Saharan Africa SSS Senior Secondary School UER Upper East Region UGCC United Gold Coast Convention UNDP United Nations Development Program UWR Upper West Region VR Volta Region WDR World Development Report WFP World Food Programme WR Western Region 8 Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, December 2012: The University of Manchester, Doctor of Philosophy State Elites and the Politics of Regional Inequality in Ghana Abstract Recent years have witnessed renewed global attention to persistent spatial inequalities and the potential role of politics and power relations in redressing and reinforcing them. This thesis offers a political analysis of the problem of regional inequality in Ghana, with particular attention to the role of inter-elite power relations in underpinning the country’s historical North-South divide. The analysis is based on three main sets of data: the regional distribution of political power during 1993-2008; the regional composition of public expenditure; and elite interviews. The thesis argues that a key factor that explains Ghana’s stark unbalanced regional development has been the continuous exclusion of the historically poorer Northern regions from a fair share of both productive and social sector spending. The socio-economic marginalisation of these regions has been underpinned principally by a weaker influence of Northern elites on resource allocation decisions within a political environment that is driven largely by patron-client relations. Consequently, even policies and programmes designed with the formal objective of targeting the ‘poor’ often end up discriminating against the poorer Northern regions at the level of implementation. However, Northern elites’ lack of ‘agenda-setting powers’ is not a function of their exclusion from government, but rather of their ‘adverse incorporation’ into the polity, whereby they have often been included on relatively unfavourable terms. This explanation differs significantly from much of current mainstream thinking regarding the underlying drivers of persistent unbalanced regional development, including dominant accounts of Ghana’s North-South inequalities. Notably, there has been a tendency of both academics and policy makers to put the blame on certain innate characteristics of the North, such as the region’s fewer production potentials associated with its ‘bad geography’ and Northerners’ proclivity for violent conflicts. Such accounts therefore tend to blame the relative socio-economic backwardness of the Northern regions on the North itself rather than the nature of its incorporation into broader political formations. 9 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai December 2012 10