The Politics of Government–Business Relations in Ghana

Abstract

The emergence of a consensus that the performance of the public sector in Ghana had been poor, and that there were limits as to what it could achieve in terms of economic growth, led the Provisional National Defence Council (P.N.D.C.) to implement various policy reforms. As the Governor of the Bank of Ghana argued in 1984: ‘Given the dismal performance of the public sector, there is need for greater reliance on private investment in the Government's efforts to resuscitate the economy’. At the same time, the P.N.D.C. began to reassess the economic role of the public sector. According to a recent document prepared by the National Commission for Democracy, ‘changed national policies’ in Ghana include ‘the reduction of the state's rôle in the economic life of the nation through shifting of more responsibility to the private sector.