Profits of doom
04-11-2001
Correspondent: Profits of Doom
Tx Date: 4th November 2001
This script was made from audio tape - any inaccuracies are due to voices
being
unclear or inaudible
00.00.00
Music
00.00.07
Tony Blair
The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the
world.
00.00.12
Music
00.00.14
John Kampfner
The rich nations are finally waking up to the dangers of
global poverty. For years they wouldn't listen. Not even
to the warnings of the head of the World Bank.
00.00.23
James Wolfensohn
It's an issue of people coming in with a bomb or poison.
Terrorism is something that is a new form of conflict,
which can affect us wherever we are.
00.00.24
Aston
1999
00.00.38
John Kampfner
Now, with the world in crisis, the issue of poverty has
acquired a new urgency. With the old certainties gone,
will the big powers finally act on the warnings of the
prophets of doom?
00.00.50
Music
00.00.55
Correspondent Theme Music
00.01.05
Title Page
PROFITS
of Doom
00.01.11
John Kampfner
Mary Agyekum is sitting on gold. But she isn't
benefiting from it. She lives in the resettled village of
New Atuabo in the West of Ghana. She breaks stones for
twelve hours a day.
00.01.25
Aston
MARY AGYEKUM
Voice over
Life is really hard for us; I can hardly look after the kids.
I can't afford to feed them let alone clothe them.
Yesterday I didn't have enough to buy them food when I
left for work. They went without until I returned in the
evening - that makes me really sad.
00.01.45
John Kampfner
The World Bank called Ghana the 'model pupil'. But
after twenty years of economic fundamentalism what do
the people have to show for it? And if it's failed here,
what chances elsewhere?
00.01.58
John Kampfner
Mary's family lived quite well. They had a farm. Then a
mining company turned up and took away their land.
00.02.06
Aston
SIMON AGYEKUM
Voice over
One day the white men came. They said they needed to
count up the total number of people in the village. We
didn't understand at first. Later it was explained that the
government had given them the land so we had to move
out and leave the land for them.
00.02.24
Simon Agyekum
Voice over
If we refused to leave peacefully they would send in the
military to force us out.
00.02.32
John Kampfner
It's a familiar story. Two thirds of land in this region has
been sold to multi-nationals. Compensation is minimal.
00.02.40
John Kampfner
In a good week Mary and her children earn two pounds.
The same policies, which drove her off her land, have put
schooling and health care beyond her means.
00.02.51
John Kampfner
Even the most basic commodity of all comes with a price
tag.
00.02.58
Mary Agyekum
Voice over
We have to buy our water. The price of a plastic
container fluctuates. When I don't have enough money
we buy it on credit and pay for it after I've earnt enough
from work. We also pay for using the toilet. Sometimes
when I can't afford it I beg the attendants to allow me to
use it without charge. When I feel I've had too many free
goes I go into the bush.
00.03.24
John Kampfner
The policy is called 'full cost recovery'.
00.03.31
John Kampfner
It's part of the conditions that comes with loans from the
World Bank and the IMF.
00.03.37
John Kampfner
From the comfort of the capital, Accra, the battle for the
essentials of life doesn't seem quite so acute.
00.03.46
John Kampfner
How much do you travel in this country?
00.03.48
Aston
PETER HARROLD
Country Director, World Bank
A certain amount. A fair bit.
00.03.49
John Kampfner
How many ordinary people, people who aren't.
00.03.50
Peter Harrold
Sorry?
00.03.52
John Kampfner
.government ministers and economic advisors.
00.03.54
Peter Harrold
Yes.
00.03.54
John Kampfner
.do you talk to?
00.03.55
Peter Harrold
Plenty.
00.03.56
John Kampfner
Do you get out to the villages, do you? Do you talk to
these people who now have to pay for their water, who
have to pay to go to the loo, who don't get compensated
for being relocated?
00.04.04
Peter Harrold
You're, you're, I know you're trying to get me angry.
I'm not going to get angry, ok, I'm going to stay calm
because you're trying to provoke me and suggest.
00.04.11
John Kampfner
No, I'm not trying to do anything, I am simply .
00.04.12
Peter Harrold
You're trying to suggest that what I do is spend my time
in an ivory tower and I've no idea what's going on in the
countryside. That is not true. I don't have any
knowledge of villages that are charging, whoever it is,
who is charging people to go to the toilet? I mean, I've
no idea what you're talking about there. What I have
seen.
00.04.31
John Kampfner
The village of New Atuabo.
00.04.33
Peter Harrold
Ok and who is charging, who is charging whom?
00.04.37
John Kampfner
The poor are being charged for all the essentials of living.
Many Ghanaians never had access to clean water. The
state run water company was a mess. That's not in
dispute.
00.04.49
John Kampfner
Azara Issah doesn't have the money to pay for clean
water. Under the plans of the IMF and the World Bank,
local communities have to finance their own supplies.
00.04.59
John Kampfner
Their next step is privatisation of the water supply. And
to get the state corporation fit for outside investment,
prices have doubled.
00.05.14
John Kampfner
Twice a day Azara goes to a dam a few hundred yards
from her village to collect water.
00.05.21
John Kampfner
It's infested with guinea worm. She knows the dangers,
but she has little choice.
00.05.33
Aston
AZARA ISSAH
Voice over
Our inability to afford the money is the reason why we
always come to fetch this water. The money that could be
used to pay for the borehole water is used to buy food
like kokoo for our breakfast since we can't afford both at
the same time. For us it is better to spend the money on
food or other things and fetch water free of charge from
the dam because having good water without food is
useless.
00.06.06
John Kampfner
Full cost recovery, or cost sharing, or cash and carry.
There are many names for the policy of making people
pay for all the essentials.
00.06.16
John Kampfner
This model is being applied throughout the developing
world.
00.06.21
John Kampfner
Azara scrapes together some money collecting
groundnuts. Her limited income means she has to make
tough choices between having food or clean water.
00.06.34
Azara Issah
Voice over
We cover the bucket with the net before we sieve the
water to remove the disease that is in it. But if we are at
home in the house, after the sieving we put it on the fire
and allow it to boil for some time so that the other
diseases and the scent in the water will be killed.
00.07.01
Azara Issah
Voice over
The disease that's in the water comes from tics. There
are also other organisms, which can attach themselves to
the human body and suck your blood. Once they've
attached themselves to your body, before you realise
they're there they've already sucked some of your blood.
00.07.26
John Kampfner
She would use clean water if she could. It's not out of
ignorance that she's doing this.
00.07.44
John Kampfner
A borehole in the centre of this village. Cost recovery in
action.
00.07.49
John Kampfner
The World Bank has decreed that countries in debt
shouldn't waste money on basic services like water.
00.07.56
John Kampfner
Here it's a form of self-service. You bring your bucket;
you pay your money. One rule for the poor another for
the rich. In America, the government pours tens of
millions of dollars into the public water system to keep it
going.
00.08.12
John Kampfner
In the villages fights tend to break out. Here a woman is
begging for clean water from her neighbours because she
can't afford to pay. This causes divisions within the
community.
00.08.36
John Kampfner
Ten hours to the north of Accra, to the poorest part of the
country.
00.08.40
Singing
00.08.46
John Kampfner
This area was Ghana's rice bowl. It provided ample work
and it provided ample food for the people - another of
life's essentials. The World Bank's policies changed all
that.
00.08.57
Drumming
00.09.07
John Kampfner
In the village of Kpembe, the people are summoned.
Festivities are declared. On one level things haven't
changed. Tribal elders have gathered to meet us. The
dancing and the singing is in our honour.
00.09.21
John Kampfner
They may have lost their livelihoods but the old traditions
for greeting visitors are maintained. Formalities are
strictly observed.
00.09.31
John Kampfner
Chief, hello, very nice to meet you. Thank you very
much for having us, thank you.
00.09.38
John Kampfner
The Chief is holding court. But there's a change in the
air. There's a new political awareness, which is
challenging the inequalities of the economic order.
00.09.48
John Kampfner
You used to farm rice yourself. You used to have, I'm
told, a thousand acres in the Katanga Valley.
00.09.53
Aston
ALHAJI IBRAHIM HAURRA
Chief of Kpembe
Subtitles
Yes, I used to be one of the
biggest rice farmers in the north.
But because of the change
of policy, I folded up.
I used to employ so many people on the farm,
here in the Katanga Valley.
00.10.08
John Kampfner
What's happened to the local rice industry? Do you
make your own rice anymore? What's happened to your
huge farms that you used to have?
00.10.14
Alhaji Ibrahim Haurra
Subtitles
The local rice industry has
virtually collapsed.
When Ghana was subsidising fertiliser
and subsidising seed.
machinery was available and that gave
employment to all who live here.
Everybody - there was almost full employment
in this area, even the young girls.
Even on weekends, students used to
go out and work on the farms.
for something they could take
to school during the week.
00.10.38
Alhaji Ibrahim Haurra
Subtitles
But with the collapse of the rice industry,
there's nothing for anybody to depend on.
Apart from moving to cities down south
to go and look for something that is non-existent.
So they come here and eventually
they are half dead.
Because they go there, they're hungry,
they can't get good jobs.
they come back with malaria
and with other diseases.
00.11.01
Alhaji Ibrahim Haurra
Subtitles
Now we have to go and buy rice.
Go and buy half a bag of rice - 50 kilos.
Buy it for 300,000 (œ30)
The IMF policy has been very negative
and has affected this area terribly.
Our standard of living
has fallen very, very low.
00.11.22
Alhaji Ibrahim Haurra
Subtitles
When they say. they give figures
That Ghana has done this and that.
we haven't seen the effects
on our people.
00.11.29
John Kampfner
Ghana now spends a hundred million dollars a year
importing rice from places like America. Two policies
rolled into one; remove subsidies and remove trade
barriers. The free market, in its purest form.
00.11.45
John Kampfner
It's a kind of economic Darwinism - natural selection,
survival of the fittest.
00.11.51
John Kampfner
Ghana was told to concentrate on two basic commodities
for export, gold and cocoa beans and let the rest wither
away.
00.11.58
Music
00.11.59
John Kampfner
A variation on a theme from colonial times.
00.12.02
Music
00.12.09
Aston
PETER HARROLD
Country Director, World Bank
Why should a tropical, a semi-tropical, semi-arid country
be growing rice?
00.12.16
John Kampfner
So it shouldn't be?
00.12.17
Peter Harrold
I doubt very much if Ghana should be even
contemplating being self-sufficient in rice. Why would
you want to do that when you've got Thailand and
Vietnam with all of their natural advantages, producing
rice at a price dramatically lower than Ghana could ever
possibly contemplate?
00.12.33
John Kampfner
No, I'm talking about America, the world's greatest
economic superpower that subsidises its own agriculture
to the tune of twenty billion dollars a year, you don't let
the locals subsidise their own domestic agriculture, isn't
there something wrong there?
00.12.46
Peter Harrold
There's something wrong in American policy on
agriculture, absolutely.
00.12.49
John Kampfner
No, I'm talking about.
00.12.50
Peter Harrold
No, I don't think so. You think, you think Ghana can out
subsidise America? Let me give you, let me give you a
number that is shocking but true. Subsidies in the OECD
countries on agriculture exceed the income of Africa.
You cannot out-subsidise those countries.
00.13.12
Music
00.13.14
John Kampfner
This game of natural selection is rigged. Poor countries
are forced to apply the rules, the rich are not.
00.13.22
John Kampfner
For the people of the International Monetary Fund, the
economists who deal with the numbers and the theories,
these problems are a little unsettling.
00.13.29
Music
00.13.33
Aston
GIRMA BEGASHAW
Country Representative, IMF
I can only say that the two institutions, the IMF and the
World Bank, are on record. They are on record asking
the EU, US and other major countries to remove
obstacles to export from developing countries. I mean
the issue is really, you can say but at the end of the day
these countries have to implement their own domestic
policies.
00.14.00
John Kampfner
So for as long as this situation exists, for as long as this
situation continues, you accept that the rules are unfair.
00.14.09
Girma Begashaw
Well the rules are not unfair, the rules are fair but
countries have to implement them.
00.14.15
John Kampfner
So the situation is unfair?
00.14.18
Girma Begashaw
The situation is unfair but the rules are fair. Free trade is,
you know, I mean at least a move towards free trade is a
fair rule. But whether it is implemented or not is another
question and the situation becomes unfair.
00.14.37
John Kampfner
And those who are the object of this unfairness are the
weakest.
00.14.45
Girma Begashaw
That's again the unfair situation. Or the unfortunate
situation.
00.14.51
Music
00.14.56
John Kampfner
It's so unfortunate no-one's taking responsibility. The
institutions blame the governments for not practising
what they preach. The governments now blame the
institutions for preaching the wrong thing.
00.15.09
Music
00.15.12
John Kampfner
The rice fields lie fallow in the Katanga Valley. No
work. No jobs. The essentials of life denied. It's a
similar story in other countries.
00.15.21
Music
00.15.24
John Kampfner
A new generation of activists is emerging. Yao Graham
heads Third World Network. He's based in Ghana but he
travels further afield monitoring the effects of World
Bank policies.
00.15.35
Aston
YAO GRAHAM
Third World Network
If you work it through in terms of the benefits, that very
small input from the central government worked its way
through in some very important ways in creating
dynamism in the local economy, stopping the drift of
young people from countryside to the towns looking for
jobs where there is none and also really just maintaining
the dignity of people, the ability to do things and support
themselves. Of course they stay in the villages, engage
in subsistence agriculture, unable to afford the growing
demands to pay for basic social services like education,
like health, like water. So we get this viscous circle.
00.16.20
John Kampfner
The loans came with conditions - cut public spending,
open up markets, remove subsidies, charge for the
essentials of life. And the loans brought debt - mountains
of it.
00.16.31
Music
00.16.34
John Kampfner
Last year Ghana spent less than four percent of its budget
on health, seven times more money went to repaying
interest on debt.
00.16.43
John Kampfner
The main hospital in Tarkwa, in the heart of the mining
region. It now has to be self-financing. That means
making the patients pick up the tab.
00.16.51
Aston
THEOPHILUS M'NYAMEKYE
Hospital Administrator
At the moment people have to pay for the cost of health
care.
00.16.57
John Kampfner
And for example, this lady, do you know did she have to
pay?
00.17.00
Agnes Essel
She will have to pay for the admission fee.
00.17.03
John Kampfner
How much did she have to pay for her admission?
00.17.05
Aston
AGNES ESSEL
Ward Nurse
She's not been, she has not been discharged. If she's
discharged then we'll do the assessment and she will
have to pay.
00.17.09
John Kampfner
Right, so on discharging she has to pay.
00.17.11
Theophilus M'nyamekye
Yes, yes.
00.17.12
John Kampfner
And what about the other patients here? Is that the same
for them or what about, what about the drugs, who pays
for the drugs?
00.17.19
Agnes Essel
They pay for the drugs.
00.17.20
Theophilus M'nyamekye
They pay for the drugs. It's cash and carry.
00.17.23
John Kampfner
Cash and carry. You call it cash and carry?
00.17.26
Theophilus M'nyamekye
So..
00.17.27
John Kampfner
What is cash and carry?
00.17.29
Theophilus M'nyamekye
The cash and carry system has been the policy of the
Ministry of Health. Over the years there has been
problems with financing of the ministry, of health care
system and therefore it was thought wise to introduce
what we call cost sharing. Now over time we realised
that the government alone cannot take care of the health
of the people and therefore individuals who need care
have to come and pay.
00.18.04
John Kampfner
Thanks to cash and carry Betty Krampa is a prisoner in
this hospital. She's just given birth to twins; one died on
delivery. She can't give the doctors the cash. Her
husband's out of work; her parents are dead. Her jailers
are as ashamed as she is at having to make her stay. But
user fees have to be collected to keep the hospital going.
00.18.29
John Kampfner
Could you just tell me, you have been discharged and you
are staying until your in-laws can produce the money, is
that correct?
00.18.39
Aston
BETTY KRAMPA
Voice over
I'd like to go home but we can't pay the bill.
00.18.45
John Kampfner
How long have you been in this hospital?
00.18.48
Betty Krampa
Voice over
I was discharged five days ago but my husband is looking
for a loan to pay the hospital fees and hasn't been able to
find it. He's gone to see if his uncle can lend him the
money.
00.18.59
John Kampfner
What was it like before cash and carry?
00.19.01
Aston
Dr EBENEZER ACQUAH
Principal Medical Officer
I tell you one thing, when I was growing up I never paid
for any medical services and I had several times been
admitted to the teaching hospitals. It was good then; now
it's like, if you can't afford then you are almost
condemned.
00.19.25
John Kampfner
Condemned by the debt mountain while living on a
mountain of gold.
00.19.31
John Kampfner
So it seems to me just having travelled around a bit in
this area that you have a strange situation in which you
have the mining companies making huge profits. Tarkwa
should be a rich area. You are sitting on all this gold.
00.19.46
Dr Ebenezer Acquah
On gold mine.
00.19.49
John Kampfner
And here you have people who are detained here because
they can't pay their medical fees. Why?
00.20.00
Dr Ebenezer Acquah
Yes, umm, maybe if you had the chance to travel around
the country you would notice that most of the mining
areas have similar problems. All the gold is taken out but
the people don't see the effects, the returns directly.
00.20.21
Music
00.20.31
John Kampfner
In colonial times this was called the Gold Coast. It's
always brought a rich seam of profits for foreigners. But
the wealth has never poured down to the people.
00.20.40
John Kampfner
Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country to go it alone.
The main industries like gold were nationalised. But by
the early eighties the economy had collapsed, corruption
was rife, hopes were dashed. The IMF and World Bank,
the white knights, rode in with a plan - structural
adjustment.
00.21.00
John Kampfner
Their message was simple - go for exports, bring back
the foreigners to run things and the road to prosperity
would be paved with gold.
00.21.09
John Kampfner
First came privatisation then the incentives. Virtual tax
holidays of up to ten years. Offshore havens for most of
the profits. Rules on the environment kept to a minimum.
00.21.25
John Kampfner
These investor friendly policies served as a model across
the developing world.
00.21.35
John Kampfner
The village of Dumasi. For the past nine years the locals
have had to live within a stones throw of an open cast pit.
It's taken them a while but now they're fighting back.
00.21.46
John Kampfner
So this was your farm, yes?
00.21.48
Dei Nkrumah Safohene
Yeah, this was my farm. You see the mining activities
has degraded all the land.
00.21.53
John Kampfner
And what did you used to grow?
00.21.54
Dei Nkrumah Safohene
I used to grow cocoa, cassava, plantain, oil palm and cash
crops, so many cash crops.
00.22.03
John Kampfner
And now?
00.22.03
Aston
DEI NKRUMAH SAFOHENE
Community Leader
All is degraded. All is spoilt.
00.22.07
John Kampfner
You don't farm anything now?
00.22.08
Dei Nkrumah Safohene
Anything. You see the whole farm is covered with their
waste material. Most of the waste has just pushed to the
cash crops. So we don't get anything. See we can't get
money to afford to put our children into schooling.
00.22.26
John Kampfner
It's a very short distance, isn't it?
00.22.27
Dei Nkrumah Safohene
Yeah, it's a hundred metres, yeah. So the distance from
the town to the pit is, the distance is too short. You see
we have been meetings with the company, only they want
their gold to go. They don't think about my life.
00.22.46
John Kampfner
And tell me when, when they decided to dig here, to
excavate here, what did they do? They came to the
village.
00.22.53
Dei Nkrumah Safohene
Yeah.
00.22.53
John Kampfner
.and, and did they give you any notice, did they tell you
what was happening or did they just say..
00.22.58
Dei Nkrumah Safohene
Ok, they came. They came nine years, nine years. This
company is really using pressure. They came and say we
allow them to operate, then the government allowed it.
They brought in military and police personnel to do their
mining activities. So even when you are going to your
farming lands, they'd be brutal.
00.23.23
John Kampfner
Allegations like these have been brought to a series of
meetings protesting at the activities of mining companies.
People from neighbouring villages have been mobilised.
00.23.35
Applause
00.23.41
Aston
JAMES BEKOE
Voice over
They said we had a choice between relocation and re-
settlement. On the sixth of February they brought thirty-
six policemen with tear gas to force us out. They said we
had been paid the value of our houses so we should
leave. We refused until we had been paid the value of
our lands. They beat us and pulled down our houses
ruining everything we owned.
00.24.03
Music
00.24.07
John Kampfner
For the people of Kyeyewere it's an impossible choice.
Give up your land, leave your home and take the meagre
compensation. But that's it, nothing to live on once the
money runs out or stay put and face the consequences.
00.24.25
James Bekoe
Voice over
They also completely demolished all our schools. The
nearest school to our settlement is now ten kilometres
away and the children can't walk that far everyday. So
they stay at home without any education.
00.24.38
Music
00.24.44
James Bekoe
Voice over
Life has become very hard for us. If you came to our
village now, you would find us living under sheds. But
since you at Dumasi have the support of your chief, I am
sure everything will work out well.
00.24.56
Applause
00.24.59
John Kampfner
The mining companies are keeping a watchful eye on the
growing protest movement.
00.25.08
Security Guard
As you probably understand you're trespassing. But I
would rather this was.as soon as you like, ok. So the
door's open down there for the BBC people.
00.25.19
John Kampfner
Good. So we'll come down and see you shortly.
00.25.27
Aston
YAO GRAHAM
Third World Network
I'm very happy to be here today in Dumasi and actually
experience a mine executive come here, try to speak, his
mouth was shaking like this, you know, and then off he
went. I mean it just shows that the power of organised
people is extremely important in any struggle that we are
engaged in. You see because we are in a country where
we had a transition to free politics, they say you can say
anything you like. But you see you can't say anything
you like, but if you don't have strength nobody will listen
to you.
00.26.04
John Kampfner
They are being forced to listen now and to answer for
their actions. The balance of power is shifting. A human
rights commission upheld the villager's complaints. But
still the companies insist their local activities are a minor
inconvenience.
00.26.19
Aston
RICHARD GRAY
Managing Director, Bogoso Gold
Ltd.
The impact of a mine has both good and bad effects. It
has, it has what should be no more than nuisance value.
If, if a mine is causing a, a, you know, the ailments you,
you, you, you alluded to we definitely, you know,
obviously we shouldn't be doing it. That wouldn't be,
you know, totally unreasonable. But if the mining, you
know, but we do accept that the mine does cause some
nuisance value in terms of it is physically there, etceteras,
etceteras.
00.26.46
John Kampfner
Would you quite happily live within a hundred metres of
that pit when the blasting takes place?
00.26.50
Richard Gray
I don't, I don't, you know, to throw up the distance issue
is one erroneous because they say there's the issue of
who moved who. But apart from that we have, even
where the nearest house is, we have done our monitoring
in, in, in the presence of the community and they have
agreed with us that blasting should continue because it
wasn't an issue. So, therefore the answer to the question
is yes, I'd be very happy to live there. I mean, I agree
with what you said, it's not, you do hear it but you know
it's a nuisance factor it's not a health factor or any other
factor.
00.27.23
John Kampfner
It was easy to fob off the villagers until they started
enlisting the help of outside activists.
00.27.31
Aston
HANNA KORANTENG
Communities Affected by Mining
People of Dumasi came to us last two years with their
complaints. We have made interventions at the
governmental level, at the local authority level and we
have invited many people to investigate their problems.
Problems of pollution, air and water pollution, problems
of skin diseases, problems of children urinating blood,
problems of communities not having fair and adequate
compensation, problems of resettlement.
00.28.05
John Kampfner
Each village has its own story but they form a common
thread.
00.28.10
John Kampfner
It's not the companies that are seen as the main culprits
now, it's the foreign institutions which impose the rules.
00.28.17
John Kampfner
Ghanaians no longer look to concerned outsiders to lobby
for them.
00.28.23
Yao Graham
I personally was going to be one of the many hundreds of
thousands of people who would have been marching on
the IMF and World Bank Headquarters in Washington.
But as you all know the United States of America is in
mourning because, I don't think anybody in the world has
not heard of the terrible and tragic events that took place;
the bombing of the World Trade Centre and also of the
Pentagon. And anybody who has seen those images on
TV, your stomach goes like that and properly everybody
has condemned this, you know, as a senseless way of
expressing whatever protest people want to express.
00.29.05
Yao Graham
But we are living in a world where so many people are
now feeling so taken for granted, not having power that
unless the big powers become more and more sensitive to
the demands of the weaker countries, all of us are
endangered. So even as we condemn what happened in
America, all of us also have a responsibility to press for
foreign policy and policies generally globally which are
more sensitive to the plight of the world's people.
00.29.40
Applause
00.29.44
Music
00.29.48
Aston
IMF archive footage
00.29.48
Voice over
At Bretton Wood, New Hampshire, delegates from forty-
four allied and associate countries arrive for the opening
of the United Nations Monetary and Financial
Conference.
00.29.57
John Kampfner
The road to hell was paved with good intentions. The
grand vision emerged from the debris of the Second
World War. The IMF and its development arm, the
World Bank, were the twin pillars guiding the world into
a new era of growth.
00.30.13
John Kampfner
The newly de-colonising nations were to fall within its
warm embrace. New industries would be developed
lifting them out of dependency. Trade would be pushed
lifting them out of poverty.
00.30.24
Voice over
..and to create a foundation for lasting peace.
00.30.30
Gunshot
00.30.31
John Kampfner
But as the disparity between rich and poor countries
actually increased the doubts and the anger grew.
00.30.32
Aston
Seattle, November 1999
00.30.38
John Kampfner
Some of the protestors were spoiling for a fight. But
most were driven by a moral outrage at the inequalities of
the world order, at a globalisation process rigged against
the weak and by the refusal of the big powers to listen.
00.30.55
John Kampfner
The new man at the Bank arrived in the mid-nineties. To
more caring Blairite and Clintonesque tones, he
abandoned structural adjustment and unveiled a poverty
reduction strategy.
00.31.05
John Kampfner
He urged rich countries to support it and with startling
foresight warned of the consequences if they didn't.
Aston
1999 interview
00.31.12
Aston
JAMES WOLFENSOHN
Chairman, World Bank
It's an issue of people coming in with a bomb or poison.
Terrorism is something that is a new form of conflict,
which can affect us wherever we are. And I believe that
if you could have a more stable situation in the world, if
you could have more equitable growth, then it's very
much in our self-interest to make sure that that happens.
00.31.35
John Kampfner
But it didn't happen and the protests grew. Each
international meeting brought promises and platitudes.
00.31.36
Aston
Genoa, July 2001
00.31.42
John Kampfner
Wolfensohn called in the activists to discuss the policies
but he shut them out when he didn't like their
conclusions.
00.31.49
Music
00.31.53
John Kampfner
Genoa this July - the meeting of the Group of Eight
wealthiest nations. Three hundred thousand people on
the streets.
00.31.59
Music
00.32.01
John Kampfner
One protestor dead. The last mass gathering of the anti-
globalisation movement.
00.32.07
Music
00.32.19
John Kampfner
The violence may have grabbed the headlines but what
went unnoticed was the presence of a growing number of
political activists from all over the developing world
including Ghana. They used every opportunity to tell the
economic fundamentalists inside that their policies
weren't working.
00.32.37
Aston
HELLEN WANGUSA
The big issue is debt in as far as it has acted as a leverage
for conditionalities to be put in place, such as structural
adjustment programmes and within that measures like
privatisation of public assets and now privatisation of
services and utilities like water and then liberalisation of
agriculture, of markets, of trade, of interest rates that
have direct impact on our productivity and our capacity
to participate in the global process of developing our
country.
00.33.12
John Kampfner
Back in Accra, Hellen Wangusa is on the trail of more
evidence. She has a rendezvous in the central market
with a particularly vulnerable set of workers.
00.33.22
Hellen Wangusa
We are with a young group of women from the north,
dislocated from their traditional habitat. They're doing
manual work; they're working as porters for only fifteen
thousand cedis. And when you break that down into how
much they need to spend and save it really is very little.
00.33.41
Hellen Wangusa
Can you describe for me a typical day's work?
00.33.48
Aston
RUKAYA
Voice over
We get up at five am, arrive at the market at seven and
our mistress comes at about seven thirty. We open the
shop and set up the stalls and when people start coming
we start carrying the goods. At about four pm we pack
away the stalls. By the time we finish it's five and we go
home.
00.34.11
Hellen Wangusa
How many years did you spend at school?
00.34.14
Rukaya
Voice over
I never went to school.
00.34.17
Hellen Wangusa
If you had the chance or a choice, what would you have
liked to do?
00.34.24
Rukaya
Voice over
If I'd gone to school I know I would have found a better
job. If I had gone to school I'd have loved to study
dressmaking. I would have liked to acquire a skill.
00.34.35
Hellen Wangusa
How can the bank and the IMF understand poverty unless
they come and get that understanding from the people
because the understanding they have is from what they do
the analysis on in the books, by economists. That
understanding is different from how the people define
poverty. Poverty here is not only about people living
below one dollar a day, it's like those girls being isolated,
being dislocated from their social habitat. It includes all
that; it includes their dignity.
00.35.08
John Kampfner
The terrorist strikes on New York and Washington
shocked and horrified people here.
00.35.13
John Kampfner
Ghanaians are instinctively pro-American and pro-
British. Religious tension is rare. Christians and Muslims
live in harmony. But September the eleventh was also
seen as the culmination of frustrations that had been
building up for some time.
00.35.32
Hellen Wangusa
I think we started seeing that even in the demonstrations
in Genoa, they were peaceful demonstrations but there
were definitely sections of the demonstration that were
very violent.
00.35.41
Hellen Wangusa
That comes out of frustration of people from seeing
institutions that are in a position where they knew
everything, they knew how to address poverty, they knew
what the government was and over fifteen to twenty years
they haven't been able to deliver. And in some countries
people have been patient over fifteen years waiting for
this, for this posterity to yield and it's not happening.
00.36.07
Music
00.36.11
John Kampfner
Radio is the most powerful medium in Ghana and Vibe
FM is one of the most influential stations. Its most
popular phone-in is Point Blank.
00.36.20
Music
00.36.29
John Kampfner
The programme is hosted by Kwesi Pratt, a former
political prisoner.
00.36.34
Kwesi Pratt
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Point Blank.
Today we are going to look at the whole concept of
globalisation.
00.36.44
John Kampfner
These days the World Bank is trying to re-invent itself as
the 'listening bank'. The relationship has changed. Now
it has to justify all its policies to a more questioning
public.
00.36.55
John Kampfner
Today the structural adjustment programme is being
dissected; starting with all the conditions attached to the
loans.
00.37.02
Peter Harrold
Conditionalities, I mean they cover all sorts of different
areas.
00.37.10
Kwesi Pratt
If you can just take the main ones, you know.
00.37.13
Peter Harrold
You name it, there have been at various times, it has to be
said, conditions in almost, in almost every sector.
00.37.20
Kwesi Pratt
But actually I wanted to know what those conditions are.
00.37.24
Peter Harrold
Well, they're not particularly secret, they are, sometimes
if you want to.
00.37.30
Kwesi Pratt
You look quite uncomfortable talking about them.
00.37.32
Peter Harrold
No, no, I'll talk about conditions, no it's just that there
are so many of them.
00.37.36
John Kampfner
These are the World Bank's new tactics - concede the
arguments in principle and promise change. But actually
on the ground conditions are being applied with as much
vigour as ever.
00.37.47
Peter Harrold
He thinks there is, everybody thinks there is.
00.37.49
Man
No, no, it's in the IMF, you know, benchmarks.
00.37.56
Peter Harrold
There's a difference between a benchmark and a
condition but that's ok.
00.37.59
Kwesi Pratt
A benchmark is a condition.
00.38.02
Peter Harrold
Why? Because the Ghana Water Corporation has failed
Ghana. If anybody thinks, here's a challenge, if anybody
thinks they get great service from Ghana Water Company
let them phone and praise this company, this company
has failed Ghanaian society.
00.38.20
Kwesi Pratt
Well, Peter, can I ask a question, can I ask the question?
Obviously there are many people who think that your
organisation has failed the people of the third world.
00.38.28
Peter Harrold
That's true.
00.38.28
Kwesi Pratt
Should we just sell it off to some multi-national
corporation?
00.38.32
Caller
Good morning... actually, I want to get this directed to Mr
Peter Harrold. I don't like the way he's trying to deceive
everybody. Now this is the issue; the IMF, World Bank
policies that come with the structural adjustment
programme and economic recovery programme actually
adjust government policy away from public welfare to
debt servicing.
00.38.55
John Kampfner
People know the detail now. They know how much has
been spent on basic services and how much on debt.
They're linking the local economy and global politics.
00.39.06
John Kampfner
This phone-in was two days after the attacks on America.
But already callers were suggesting a connection between
poverty and terrorism.
00.39.15
Caller
.now can we stop pretending, while the people are
dying that what's happened in America should give us a
clue that it's not the people, it's not just about terrorism.
Who created the terrorists? It is God Almighty didn't
create anybody to become a terrorist? It is the system
that is making the people so. You see what I am talking
about.
00.39.32
Kwesi Pratt
Yes sir.
00.39.33
Caller
.that this kind of chaos will continue, the unrest will
continue, all this will continue.
00.39.37
Kwesi Pratt
Thank you very much, your point is well made and thank
you very much. Peter, quick reaction.
00.39.43
Peter Harrold
He's right and we agree, we've changed and we are doing
something about Africa's debt problem, so that that
problem of resources only going to service debt instead
of education and health etceteras will not be the same in
the future.
00.39.54
Music
00.39.56
John Kampfner
Frustration is growing. Reliance on gold and cocoa
hasn't brought wealth to the people. Other industries are
struggling like textiles. Locally made clothes have given
way to second hand imports.
00.40.08
John Kampfner
This time though the Bank says it really does have a plan
for the poor. HIPC - the Highly Indebted Poor Countries
initiative. For Ghana just the name marks the final
humiliation. Model pupil turned beggar.
00.40.22
John Kampfner
The Bank promises its intentions are good - write off
much of the debt and divert the money to basic services.
00.40.29
John Kampfner
So if it's so desirable, if it's only aim is purely to reduce
poverty, if it's simply providing countries with debt relief
on a plate - why are so many Ghanaians against it?
00.40.38
Peter Harrold
There are people who, who were not enthusiastic about
structural adjustment and believe this was just going to
be more pain. They couldn't believe that the World Bank
and IMF were advocating a programme that was actually
going to relieve the country of debt. They couldn't
believe that that would be the case even though it is the
case.
00.41.01
John Kampfner
So it was too good.
00.41.01
Peter Harrold
There had to be a trick.
00.41.02
John Kampfner
It was too good to be true.
00.41.03
Peter Harrold
Too good to be true.
00.41.05
John Kampfner
Every country that underwent structural adjustment is
mired in debt. Even the bank admits average incomes
have failed to rise in twenty years.
00.41.14
John Kampfner
Is it surprising then that people no longer believe the
grand promises for the future, given everything that's
happened in the past?
00.41.21
Yao Graham
Ghana moved from being the great black hope of
structural adjustment, the shining star of the African
continent to becoming one more highly indebted poor
country among forty plus others.
00.41.39
Yao Graham
If anything, I think it's very clear, that those who accuse
the IMF and the World Bank of a market fundamentalism
and also trying to impose a mono-culture of economic
models on people, they have been validated.
00.41.57
Yao Graham
When you ask the people from the Bank and the Fund to
point you to one country where the model has worked
they begin to tell you that people have not carried on with
the programme enough. But they must show that the real
world, it doesn't happen as they have preached it. If in
the real world nobody is able to follow their orthodoxy, is
it people who are wrong or what they are thinking in their
heads which is wrong?
00.42.22
Music
00.42.28
John Kampfner
They admit it themselves; their thinking was wrong.
Economic fundamentalism has left hundreds of millions
worse off than ever and the world more unequal than
ever.
00.42.40
John Kampfner
In these more unstable times, perhaps if only for self-
preservation, the prophecies of doom will no longer be
ignored.
00.42.48
Music
00.42.51
Voice over
For more information about tonight's programme please
visit our web site at:
www.bbc.co.uk/correspondent
00.43.01
Voice over
Next week - can men who've dedicated their lives to
violent crime really change? In South Africa we follow
two convicted killers as they're released from prison to
try to make a clean break with the past.
Credits
00.42.51
Reporter
JOHN KAMPFNER
Camera
DEAN JOHNSON
Dubbing Mixer
PHITZ HEARNE
VT Editor
NICK KAMPA
Graphic Design
NICOLA OWEN
Production Team
ALEXANDRA CAMERON
EMMA CASHMORE
SARAH EVA
KEITH POTTER
ANJANA SHARMA
Production Manager
JANE WILLEY
Unit Manager
IRENE OZGA
Film Research
NICK DODD
Assistant Producer
ANTONIA GREGORY
Picture Editor
DAVID HOWELL
Series Producer
SIMON FINCH
Directed & Produced
STUART TANNER
Deputy Editor
FARAH DURRANI
00.43.14
Editor
FIONA MURCH
BBC
¸ BBC MMI
00.43.20
End
BBC Correspondent
1
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