by Jonathan Sonnenberg
I. Introduction
During my stay in Ghana, I had many encounters that reinforced the country’s reputation for mineral wealth. I heard stories of heavy rain washing up gold nuggets like magic backyard beansprouts, of trap doors and secret mining tunnels hidden under living room tables. I heard whispers of galamsey (unlicensed, illegal mining) operations laundering hundreds of thousands of Cedis through empty nightclubs. I was approached on the streets of Accra by a stranger who gave me her cell phone number and promised me a good price for gold bars. I even heard rumors that a recent NYU alumnus had moved to Ghana to partner in a mining operation of his own.
Ghana’s abundance of gold is not just hearsay; nor is gold the country’s only valuable natural resource. In 2016, the country’s exports garnered an income of more than 46 billion GHC, about 42% of which was owed to the trade of gold. Oil and petroleum accounted for more than 10% of this income; cocoa beans comprised another 18%.[1] This small group of commodities make up 70% of total exports in a country where exports contribute to 41% of GDP.[2] Ghana is undoubtedly rich in natural resources. It is somewhat of a wonder, then, that the country is now classified for the second time in twenty years as a “Heavily Indebted Poor Country.” The explanation for this lies in an understanding of the financial practices of international organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and of the economic motivations of countries that once referred to Ghana as the “Gold Coast.”
There are 39 countries currently listed by the World Bank as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. Such countries have been approved for a specialized debt restructuring program designed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, among other, attendant agencies.[3] The program aims to restore economies “overwhelmed by unmanageable or unsustainable debt,” along guidelines set by both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.[4] 35 of the 39 countries currently listed by the World Bank as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries export at least one of the following commodities: oil, gold, cotton, cocoa, coffee (see chart here).[5] [6] The Republic of Ghana, which exports gold, cocoa, and oil,[7] has applied for relief through the HIPC initiative twice.[8] After receiving relief between 2001 and 2007, it has again been enrolled since 2015, and is expected to be so until approximately 2020.[9] Ghana’s exemplary export-reliant economy, and its unique second HIPC candidacy make the country a prime model through which to illustrate the effects of the HIPC program, and to examine the motivations behind it. The HIPC initiative has contributed to an extortive trend of debt-cycling that enables and encourages foreign entities to profit on defaulted loans to Ghana, impose their interests through mandatory policy changes imposed on Ghana’s government by the World Bank, and profit on resultant low export prices, while distributing the cost of this exploitation to Ghana’s lowest income bracket.
II. The Debt Dilemma
HIPC status requirements call attention to powerful countries’ lack of respect for the sovereignty of “poor” nations like Ghana. With regard for its debt, Ghana must decide whether or not to apply for relief, but the country does not really face much choice. Given the circumstances of a country eligible for HIPC status, the receipt of no debt relief equates to the indefinite persistence of that debt. A country may, as Ghana has, pay off interest every year to avoid compounding what they owe,[10] but all else remaining constant, this does not bring the country closer to alleviating its burden. Such action enables the nation only to bide its time until it develops or accrues new capital that increases investment to a point where government revenue can consume the national deficit. This will be difficult, however, as meanwhile new loans may be required to grow that necessary capital. The government expenditure necessary to indirectly reduce its deficit may directly exacerbate it. To abandon the debt altogether, and refuse to reimburse creditors, would invoke punishment from other like-minded creditors and their host countries. A nation that blatantly owes to foreign entities might find itself subjected to trade embargoes, heavy export taxes, and even invasion.
As the US invasions of Panama and Iraq illustrate, the disobedience of countries with assets to share is intolerable to foreign interests. In 1990, the United States invaded Panama on the pretext that they were rescuing Panamanians from the tyrannical Manuel Noriega, Panama’s military dictator. In reality, Noriega had been encouraged by the CIA—even paid—until he no longer cooperated with US interests (likely related to the Panama Canal). Panama was bombed, and Noriega was removed at the cost of several thousand Panamanian civilians.[11] Thirteen years later, the United States invaded Iraq on the pretexts that the country was in possession of nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraq’s government, headed by President Saddam Hussein, was somehow responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center in 2001. Both sets of intelligence were fabricated to justify the invasion, which White House staff had been considering possibly before the 2001 attack. The US government likely intended to install a government that would enable it to assert its political interests in the oil-rich region.
By opting for relief via the HIPC program, Ghana faces a more peaceable, but no less demanding alternative in the IMF’s list of stipulations. As a HIPC applicant, the country’s main priority is to design a Poverty Reduction Strategy that the IMF deems satisfactory.[12] The pillars of this Strategy are broadly defined to offer HIP Countries authority over their own policy following their enrollment in the program. It is questionable, however, how much authority can actually be granted to a country under the supervision of the IMF. Criteria described in the IMF’s own factsheets illustrates why this is the case. During both the drafting and implementation processes of the Poverty Reduction Strategy, countries seeking relief through the HIPC initiative must “draw heavily on World Bank expertise and advice.”[13] The World Bank monitors the countries, and regularly informs the IMF of their governments’ response to that advice. If behavioral adjustments have to be made to suit the needs of “relevant stakeholders [such as] the World Bank,” the IMF reserves the right to halt the process, withholding relief until the adjustments are made.[14] Because the World Bank and the IMF (which is based in Washington D.C.) are congregational institutions directed by representatives from many official member nations,[15] it is difficult to discern what advice might belong to the agendas of foreign interests. Because relief is only granted to HIP Countries according to this advice, any foreign interest represented by World Bank consultants will be obliged.
To receive HIPC relief, a country’s government must submit an application to the IMF detailing a plan for major economic reform. The IMF describes this process in two stages: the “Decision Point” and the “Completion Point.” At the Decision Point, the executive boards of the IMF and the World Bank determine if the country meets the preliminary criteria for HIPC status. A country must prove that its debt cannot be managed by ordinary methods, cite a history of compliance with the motivations and programs of the World Bank and the IMF, and produce a “Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.”[16] This paper is meant to act as a blueprint for establishing more sustainable economic practices on behalf of the government during future relief implementation. At the Decision Point, however, the Strategy is only a portfolio of documents evidencing Ghana’s competency in financial planning, and its willingness to comply with the IMF. One of the portfolio’s key documents is the Economic Development Document. The Document details either “existing national development plans” for implementing Ghana’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, or a new plan to be executed “under an IMF-supported program.”[17] Such plans must describe with what policy Ghana intends to meet “poverty reduction and growth objectives,” and the means for enforcing that policy.[18] Plans must also specify a timeframe in which the initiatives of the Strategy are to transpire. In meeting these criteria a country becomes eligible for interest-free loans and grants from the World Bank, and low-interest loans from the IMF. Once approved for relief, a country must maintain fiscally responsible action—as defined by documentation granted at the Decision Point—and fully implement its Poverty Reduction Strategy. At this point the IMF begins to relieve the country’s debt in full. This is the Completion Point.[19]
III. Astigmatic Forecasting, Predatory Lending, and the Anatomy of the Debt Cycle
Most sources trace the seeds of Ghana’s (like many other heavily indebted countries’) debt spiral to dramatic shifts in the commodities market during the 1980s.[20] Gold prices, particularly, were high, and the government of Ghana borrowed large amounts of money for development projects, expecting profits from future exportation to cover the loans and interest.[21] However, global drops in export prices significantly reduced profit margins. Ghana’s economy did not meet projected growth rates, and the government found itself unable to repay its debt.[22] This was a common crisis among other countries whose economies relied as much on exports, and the dip in prices is still largely considered to have been unforeseeable at the time. What was obvious, though perhaps ignored, at the time was a radical shift in how and for what loans were being made.[23] Countries like Ghana, with high rates of poverty, and below-average GDP were borrowing “to pay for current consumption, [and] not for productive investments” in the production of their resources.[24] The loans were not used, as they historically have been, to finance projects that themselves would repay the loans. Instead, they were used to directly raise standards of living at a faster rate than the burgeoning economy was.[25]
Little attention was being paid to creditors’ methods of risk and yield assessment. By the 1970s, it was common for governments, development firms, and banks to employ Econometrics, the study of models as tools “to forecast future [economic] developments.”[26] Econometrics provides a common methodology for measuring the outcomes of economic stimuli, but because economic models so greatly rely on “all else being equal,” such methodology is drastically lacking for its purpose of prediction.[27] Different input variates produce different types of outputs that are not necessarily correlated, and every singular model ignores variables irrelevant to its specific test.[28] If lending agencies were relying on econometrics to assess loans made to Ghana in the 1970s, they failed to account for the factors that led to the recession in the 1980s. The government of Ghana may have been simultaneously misled by similar figures.
Ghana’s economy, precariously perched on major exports, was unstable. It relied on circumstantial commodities markets for good fortune. The circumstances it faced in the 1980s were unfortunate, but not outlandish or alarming. Loans were made in good faith at a bad time; risks were assessed and realized. Circumstance, however, is not addressed by Econometrics, as unpredictable.[29] If econometric models were presented as certain predictions, they may have persuaded the government of Ghana and its creditors to agree to more and riskier loans than they otherwise would have. Because there is no public record of who made these projections, it is impossible to hold them accountable, or bring their methodology into question. As a result, only speculation can be made into why the loans were accepted.
Ghana’s debt grew over the course of the 80s and 90s. When the opportunity for debt relief arose at the turn of the twenty-first century, extensive deliberation weighed the benefits of the IMF’s relief program against the damage to credit reputation inflicted by HIPC status.[30] Ultimately, in 2001, Ghana decided to apply for HIPC relief on the condition that it be absolved of its debt to the United Kingdom upon reaching the Decision Point.[31] Over the next five years, debt fell by about 65%; primary school graduation rose by almost 50%;[32] GDP rose by a sum of over 30%.[33] Yet, the economy retained its lopsided shape. In 2006, Ghana still depended on the export of commodities.[34]
As the global economy again expanded in the late 2000s, commodities began to rise in price. The influx of wealth generated by high rates for gold, cocoa, and oil drastically but unevenly raised Ghana’s GDP. The richest tenth of the country’s population experienced an increase in income 900% greater than that of the poorest ten percent, an inequity much higher than during periods when overall economic growth was slower. Ghana began to accept a growing number of loan offers despite its remaining debt of $2.3 billion, even as the prices of gold and oil decreased. Within a decade of the IMF’s approval of Ghana’s HIPC status at the 2001 Decision Point, Ghana was again borrowing at a steady rate. By 2015, it owed approximately $18 billion, almost half of which was used to reimburse creditors for other loans.[35]
Much of this money was lent by the World Bank itself for projects undisclosed before the finalization of their enabling loans, and largely unelaborated during and after their completion. However, the IMF’s own research indicates “no relationship [between] the increase in lending,” and growth of government assets, meaning that national investment did not rise as a result of the loans (even if some of the money was invested). Despite how large the sums of money loaned by the World Bank were, no significant amount of that money dispersed or grew within the economy. Wherever it did go is also undisclosed. Much like those that left Ghana with an “unsustainable debt burden” (to borrow phraseology from the HIPC handbook) at the turn of the century, the loans that funded these unfruitful projects have not been publicly justified by any statistician.[36]
Also striking about the loans issued by the World Bank between 2007 and 2015 is the blatant irresponsibility on the organization’s own behalf, and on the government of Ghana. Both parties continued to agree to more loans even amidst newly rising debt that classified Ghana at high risk of debt distress. Though the World Bank’s own policy discourages it from making any non-grant loans to high-risk countries, more than $1 billion of new loans were approved in 2015. Meanwhile, commodity prices continued to fluctuate below the margins necessary to check Ghana’s growing deficit, and the Ghanaian Cedi lost 50% of its exchange-value with the Dollar. Most of Ghana’s loans were filed in dollars, so its debt grew by about another half as Ghana owed 50% more Cedis for the same number of dollars. The country found itself again in danger of defaulting on its loans, and in 2015 was classified as an HIPC a second time. The ramifications, of course, have fallen on Ghana’s poor, as indicated by the aforementioned records of rising inequity following the 2006 economic boom. Yet the institutions responsible for digging these mires remain sturdy.[37]
With hindsight, creditors must have known that Ghana was unlikely to pay its loans; Ghana’s government, too, knew from experience that the economy it oversaw was volatile. Fooled twice, the agreeable parties begin to look suspicious. The lenders, the very entities in possession of the bonds Ghana has so far failed to repay, have proven impervious to consequences. Promised large interest rates from Ghana, and guaranteed reimbursement by the World Bank should Ghana default, the creditors currently stand to sizably profit from loans that they do not expect to see returned. They will instead collect multiple installments of interest from Ghana, and be awarded relief money by the IMF. The longer the loans remain outstanding (whether Ghana defaults or does not), the more profit bond speculators will see. The World Bank meanwhile continues to advise Ghana to lower the price of its exports in order to raise capital faster. Because Ghana is obligated to follow this advice to reach its Completion Point, its export prices will fall, benefitting commodities speculators like producers of refined petroleum, gold, and cocoa products. The HIPC initiative sets the terms by which the World Bank effectively represents the interests of foreign entities in demand of Ghana’s resources. Debt relief policies and mandatory “advice” extort Ghana for its most precious resources, and leave its economy vulnerable to future exploitation. Meanwhile, creditors bleed Ghana’s treasury of exorbitant interest, and, when the country defaults, collect the outstanding principal from the IMF.[38]
IV. Structural Inequality and the Erosion of Sovereignty
It is confounding that loans can be made to both default and profit; it is perhaps stranger that organizations like the government of Ghana and the World Bank are willing to make these loans at all-but-certain cost. Bond speculators may profit from interest and reimbursement for unpaid loans, but at cost to Ghana, the World Bank, and the IMF. Yet Ghana’s government and the two agencies continue to negotiate cycles of debt and relief in spite of the damage it apparently causes them. This contradiction can be partially reconciled by the World Bank’s and IMF’s deliberative structure.
Both the World Bank and the IMF are funded by “member countries, primarily through . . . payment quotas.”[39] These payment quotas are comprised of government revenue—taxes—that 189 countries deposit at the World Bank and the IMF on a regular basis. The governments of these countries are afforded a share of the firms’ decision-making, and benefit from the reduced prices of commodities. Of course, civilian taxpayers have no direct say in how these institutions are run, so they have little means of dissent against such irresponsible practices as described above. The organizations’ activities are also difficult for a layperson, who lacks sufficient briefing, to follow and research. The World Bank and the IMF therefore have virtually unmitigated access to the largest store of wealth in the world: taxpayers. They risk nothing by lending out money they will lose; they lose nothing by reimbursing their affiliates. Representatives from member nations will continue to collect static salaries from their governments, and the funds they manage will continue to draw steadily from taxpayers.[40]
Because executive forces at the IMF represent governments, their behavior is bound to be influenced by politics. They are, after all, present to represent the interests of their country. Furthermore, their politics are influenced by power dynamics between these governments. These power dynamics are not balanced. “The highest decision-making body of the IMF” is its Board of Governors.[41] Theoretically, the Board is comprised of 378 representatives—one Governor and one alternate Governor from each of the 189 member nations—though not every country has an alternate Governor.[42] Despite the even distribution of seats at the Board of Governors, there is no such equity of direct or indirect influence. Representatives are granted votes in quantity relative to the quotas they deposit at the Fund and at the World Bank.[43] Larger quotas are filled by wealthier countries, so the IMF essentially entitles greater power to these countries simply because they are rich.[44] For example: The United States controls 16.52%—the greatest single share—of the Board of Governors’ votes; China controls the second largest at 6.09%; Comoros, an HIPC, controls only 0.03%; Ghana controls 0.18%.[45] The wealthiest countries, though least affected by the IMF’s actions, have the greatest influence on its policy. Representatives from wealthy nations like the USA, in whose Dollar most of Ghana’s debts are filed, or China, one of the greatest sources of demand for Ghana’s gold,[46] may impose the interests of their governments on those of less wealthy and consequently less powerful governments like Ghana’s. Meanwhile, they can justify these loans with misrepresentative econometric models.
Left unrepresented are the leaders of nations like Ghana, politicians who are paid the same salary for accruing debt as for reducing it. There is no clear motivation for an impartial government official to heinously misappropriate the funds at his or her disposal, and the promises of democracy suggest that there is enormous incentive for that same individual to avoid making such mistakes—unless that person is not impartial. It cannot be said, in most cases, why these public servants may be enticed to abuse their countries’ credit, and allow the burden to fall on its poorest citizens. It is feasible that Ghana’s politicians hold the same stakes as foreign interests, or hold stakes directly in foreign interests. A Ghanaian government official may speculate on commodities, or own stock in a foreign petroleum company that imports cheap Ghanaian oil, and exports more expensive gasoline back to Ghana. Such opportunistic motives notwithstanding, that same official still faces the stern hand of wealthy nations that possess the influence to organize cataclysmic obstruction of Ghana’s international commerce. A noncompliant government might find itself crucified by propaganda, and then by bombs. A good-hearted, saintly, entirely incorruptible government official will still find a dilemma in sacrificing his or her country to the cycles of debt facilitated by the World Bank and the IMF, because the alternative, to defy the will of the powers-at-be, is so bleak. Ghana will still find itself stuck between Scylla and Charybdis, between a rock and a hard place. By opting for HIPC relief, Ghana has fed the mouth that bites it, in order to prevent further stagnation and possible war.
V. Conclusion
Most of the stories I heard in Ghana were not about gold. More were about freedom. Sixty years after the Republic of Ghana declared independence from Great Britain, its citizens are still celebrating their triumphs over colonialism. There is a sobering fact, however, with which they continue to reckon. Forms of imperialism subtler than the Union Jack still affront Ghana’s sovereignty. Coercive economic pressures still threaten the country’s independence. The World Bank and the IMF institutionalize these pressures through programs like the HIPC initiative.
The HIPC initiative presents itself as an extremely forgiving relief effort, but in effect expedites the concentration of wealth in poor countries with imbalanced economies. It is a part of a majorly delinquent system that has perpetuated cycles of debt in Ghana by converting government revenue (from taxes) into reimbursement for disposable loans, and simultaneously claiming export commodities as collateral. Because of the consequences Ghana faces as an underrepresented figure on the international stage, it must abide the exploitative mechanisms of the HIPC initiative or face dire economic and humanitarian consequences. Perhaps by biding its time, the government of Ghana will invite some opportunity to break free of this dilemma, but for now, it likely will remain subject to the authority of wealthier nations represented by organizations like the IMF.
***
[1] “Ghana (GHA) Exports, Imports, and Trade Partners,” The Observatory of Economic Complexity, 2018, atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/gha/.
[2] “Ghana,” CIA – World Factbook, CIA, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/gh.html.
[3] “Factsheet: Debt Relief Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative,” International Monetary Fund, March 2018, http://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2016/08/01/16/11/Debt-Relief-Under-the-Heavily-Indebted-Poor-Countries-Initiative.
[4] “Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC),” World Bank Open Data, World Bank Group, 2018, https://data.worldbank.org/region/heavily-indebted-poor-countries-hipc?view=chart.
[5] Chart created by the author, Commodities Exports of HIPC Countries (2016) data from CIA – World Factbook, CIA, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/gh.html.
[6] “Ghana,” CIA – World Factbook, CIA, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/gh.html.
[7] “Ghana,” CIA – World Factbook.
[8] Tim Jones, “The Fall and Rise of Ghana’s Debt” (Jubilee Debt Campaign, 2016), 4.
[9] Jones, 5.
[10] Jones, 5.
[11] Belen Fernandez, “The Truth behind US’ Operation Just Cause in Panama,” Al Jazeera, January 31, 2016, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/truth-operation-panama-160131085323562.html.
[12] “Factsheet: Debt Relief Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative”
[13] “Factsheet: Poverty Reduction Strategy in IMF-supported Programs,” International Monetary Fund, March 2016, https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/prsp.htm.
[14] “Factsheet: Poverty Reduction Strategy in IMF-supported Programs.”
[15] “Factsheet: Where the IMF Gets Its Money,” International Monetary Fund, April 2018, http://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Where-the-IMF-Gets-Its-Money.
[16] “Factsheet: Debt Relief Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.”
[17] “Factsheet: Poverty Reduction Strategy in IMF-supported Programs.”
[18] “Factsheet: Poverty Reduction Strategy in IMF-supported Programs.”
[19] “Factsheet: Debt Relief Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.”
[20] Jones, “The Fall and Rise of Ghana’s Debt,” 4.
[21] Jones, 5.
[22] Jones, 4.
[23] Vincent Ferarro and Melissa Rosser. “Global Debt and Third World Development” from World Security: Challenges for a New Century, edited by Michael Klare and Daniel Thomas (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994): 332-355. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/globdebt.htm.
[24] Ferraro and Rosser.
[25] Ferraro and Rosser.
[26] Saul H. Hymans, “Forecasting and Econometric Models,” Library of Economics and Liberty, 2008, http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/ForecastingandEconometricModels.html.
[27] Donald N. McCloskey, “The Rhetoric of Economics” in Journal of Economic Literature 21, no. 2 (American Economic Association, 1983): 484. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2724987.
[28] McCloskey, 512.
[29] McCloskey, 512.
[30] Emmanuel Amoah-Darkwah, “Will Ghana Go ‘HIPC’ Again?,” Modern Ghana, September 19, 2015, https://www.modernghana.com/news/643857/will-ghana-go-hipc-again.html.
[31] “UK to Cancel Ghana’s Debt, If…,” Modern Ghana, June 7, 2001, https://www.modernghana.com/news/14609/0/uk-to-cancel-ghanas-debt-if.html.
[32] Jones, “The Fall and Rise of Ghana’s Debt,” 5.
[33] “UK to Cancel Ghana’s Debt, If…”
[34] Jones, “The Fall and Rise of Ghana’s Debt,” 4.
[35] Jones, 5.
[36] Jones, 5.
[37] Jones, 5.
[38] Jones, 5.
[39] “Factsheet: Where the IMF Gets Its Money.”
[40] “Factsheet: Where the IMF Gets Its Money.”
[41] “IMF Members’ Quotas and Voting Power, and IMF Board of Governors,” International Monetary Fund, 2018, http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.aspx
[42] “IMF Members’ Quotas and Voting Power, and IMF Board of Governors.”
[43] “Factsheet: How the IMF Makes Decisions,” International Monetary Fund, 2018, http://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2016/07/27/15/24/How-the-IMF-Makes-Decisions.
[44] “Factsheet: How the IMF Makes Decisions.”
[45] “Factsheet: IMF Support for Low-Income Countries,” International Monetary Fund, 2018, http://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/IMF-Support-for-Low-Income-Countries.
[46] Jones, “The Fall and Rise of Ghana’s Debt,” 4.