Abstract
Exploitation of mineral resources in Africa has historically focused on a narrow range of minerals due to the dominance of foreign capital in the sector, which invariably determines the resources to exploit. In Ghana, this narrow range of minerals (also known as traditional minerals) has included gold, diamonds, bauxite and manganese. Exploitation of these resources has been isolated and poorly linked to the economic fabric of the country, a situation that has been described as “enclave” in the literature and cuts across the continent. Various efforts to remedy the situation, including but not limited to the adoption of the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) by the then Organization of African Unity (now African Union), have so far failed. In 2009, the heads of state and government of the African Union adopted the Africa Mining Vision (AMV) to respond to the resource paradox in Africa by transforming the mining sector across the continent “away from its colonially created enclave features” through the diversification of the mineral base to incorporate lower value industrial minerals (UNECA & AU, 2011). It is against this background and within the scholarly context of Kaldor’s and Hirschman’s theories of economic growth and linkages respectively that this thesis sought to assess the potential of Ghana’s salt sector to contribute to sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development.
The first major contribution of the project assessed the institutional framework that governs the salt sector, situated in a political settlement approach that demonstrates the dependence of enforceability of institutions and economic performance on the distribution of political power among formal and informal authorities. The investigation showed how regulatory power (and benefits) in the salt sector is distributed among secular and traditional authorities. It is similar to
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predictions of the political settlements theory that in developing countries relatively smaller amounts of rent produced are distributed by informal institutions that “structurally operate on a different scale in all developing countries” (Kahn, 2010: p. 5). This aspect of the project extended the theory by showing how distribution of regulatory power is codified, using salt in Ghana as a case in point. Though the sector has enjoyed some relative stability over the past three decades, its rather poor production performance (compared with its potential) requires the state to re-examine the distribution of regulatory power with traditional authorities and institutions. This is in light of the poor performance of the sector as well as the conflictual relationships that have evolved among or between critical stakeholders in the sector over the past three decades, as well as the government’s plans to diversify the country’s mineral base with salt on the radar.
The second major contribution assessed two key state interventions in the salt sector over the past three decades in the context of a developmental state framework pioneered by East Asian countries such as Japan, China, South Korea, and Taiwan. An overview of the developmental state concept and associated theoretical framework was presented, highlighting the preconditions and defining features of a developmental state. These features served as the basis for assessing the state’s interventions with the establishment of the Ada Songor Salt Project and the Presidential Special Initiative on Salt. This followed an historical overview of Ghana from a developmental state perspective, as well as the conception, design and implementation of the two selected state interventions in the salt sector. These interventions, in light of their employment generation potential and relevance for other economic sectors, and by implication industrialisation, were found to have been informed by a developmentalist orientation and being reflective of the selectivity characteristic of a developmental state. However, due to inadequate autonomy and poor
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competency, among other factors, these interventions were poorly implemented and failed to achieve their set objectives.
The third contribution examined the management of work organisations across the salt sector by drawing upon original research conducted in three key salt-producing regions of Ghana (Central, Greater Accra and Volta regions) situated in theoretical developments in the Labour Process Theory (LPT). The researcher further examined the differences between the image and reality of working as a labourer in the salt sector, drawing on LPT and bearing in mind the significant fragmentation of LPT since the 1980s. The process of joining the large-scale salt mines and Atsiekpo at Adina and Ada, following the takeover of salt fields by Kensington and Electrochem respectively, provided further context to understanding the labour process in the salt sector. Contrary to increases in productivity and consequently output as predicted by Marx, the salt sector in Ghana has stagnated for decades. From the findings it can be deduced that production and productivity in the salt mines are hampered by a range of factors other than climatic conditions. These are liberalisation and poor treatment of workers, particularly remuneration and delayed payment, as well as the extent to which labour and the entire work environment are controlled. The feeling of alienation by workers reflects their reported poor treatment and is a factor that inhibits productivity and production. These findings are contrary to the predictions of Marx but shed light on and extend the literature on the negative effects of liberalisation on economic growth and development in the Global South.
The final major contribution assessed the linkages impact of the salt sector, relative to traditional minerals and other primary sectors. It was the first of its kind and was situated within the context of growing regional and continental efforts to diversify mining activities as reflected in the Africa Mining Vision and ECOWAS Mineral Development Policy, as well as Hirschman’s linkages
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theory. The analyses conducted generally showed that the salt sector, despite having been neglected for decades and suffering a distant-cousin treatment relative to the traditional minerals sector all this while (Atta-Quayson, 2017), had comparable multipliers with those of traditional minerals and crude oil production. In some cases, such as backward linkage output multipliers, backward linkage value-added multipliers, backward linkage labour income multiplier, and backward linkage capital owners’ multiplier, the salt sector outperformed the traditional minerals sector. More pronounced as far as the potential of the salt sector is concerned, is the employment of multipliers based on the number of workers employed per one million Ghana cedi change in final demand. It was observed that the salt sector had the highest multiplier. In the case of backward linkages, the salt sector’s multiplier of 120.464 was more than twice of that of the agricultural sector, which had the second highest multiplier of 51.229. The analyses have shown that the salt sector (which is not well developed compared to the traditional minerals sector) holds significant potential to serve as a pillar or catalyst for inclusive and broad-based economic growth and development, relative to the more developed and modern traditional minerals sector.