ABSTRACT
Ghana’s debt burden, which accumulated over the last two decades under the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), grew from around US$1 billion in 1980 to over US$6 billion in 2000, while the per capita debt burden rose from US$83 in 1980 to US$300 in 2000. With a per capita income of US$390 (in 2000), this debt burden not only constrains the country’s capacity to save, which in turn restricts internal investment capacity, but it also undermines organized labour and its ability to bargain for better wages and improved labour relations. In the past decade this has been compounded by the retrenchment of the public sector and the growth of the so-called informal sector. Increasingly, Ghana’s trade-union leaders are becoming dependent on foreign (i.e. Western) trade unions and NGOs for their survival. This process constitutes a democratization of dependency, namely, the spread of dependence from the top to the bottom of Ghanaian society.
