Perhaps, at least as far as Ghana itself as a country is concerned, the domestic politics has superseded the geopolitical, and we emerge now upon an era of fierce contest – part healthy business competition, part political machination of the “commanding heights” type – in which the obvious prize is dynastic and clan control of a future, multi-billion dollar, integrated aluminum industry in Ghana. There is no doubt that serious politics continue to suffuse the aluminum story of this country. As far as observers of this persuasion are concerned global control over aluminum, a major input into modern industrial manufacturing, had been the endgame of Nkrumah-era African geopolitics, with only mild attenuation thereafter. And for added measure all these vested interests have been American. The same Ghanaian commentator cited above argues at one point that the industrial interests behind Ghana's bauxite story from the early 60s were also the dominant forces in Guinea's case all along. After all, it was at the height of political confusion in that country that he decided to approve the ceding of operational control over nearly all of Guinea's bauxite reserves to a private Chinese consortium. One supposes that more adventurous commentators feel at ease linking the recent ouster of Guinea's junta leader to certain dimensions of the geopolitical struggle over aluminum. Such a view thus readily mutate to approval of the growing Chinese prominence in the way the aluminum story is panning out here nowadays. And every socialist worth his salt concludes that impair he did, with the active support of the American imperialists of course. If Nkrumah was the brain behind the post-independence dream of an integrated aluminum industry in Ghana, it was Edgar Kaiser, the American industrialist, who was the financial and political muscle behind Valco and to a certain extent the Akosombo dam too (the Americans paid half the tab), and therefore the man who could most impair Nkrumah's visions. Indeed, one Ghanaian commentator, citing James Moxon's account of the geopolitics of Ghana's early aluminum ambitions, described Nkrumah's aluminum fervor as one of the primary motivations behind his promotion of the Ghana-Guinea-Mali union. *Introduction: the allure of the white metal*Īs national dreams go, none has been as compulsive in the case of Ghana as the desire of our most powerful leaders to realize the long-held ambition of erecting an integrated aluminum complex in this beloved country. It raises questions about VALCO and the economics of energy generation and distribution to power the industrialization all political parties support. The recent deal in which the Chinese purchased Ghana's key bauxite assets in Awaso should be scrutinized closely, and all terms should be disclosed since Ghana may end up the loser. The business and political intrigue and machination going on in the aluminum sector is intertwined with developments in the oil and power sectors, but they should be no cause for worry in an open, transparent, and competitive regime.ģ. There isn't just one, tightly-woven, approach to obtain value from our bauxite.Ģ. 1.Ě rigid devotion to developing a “closed integrated aluminum complex” in Ghana can be economically unsound since other more open models that are less driven by notions of heavy industrialization at all cost could produce more benefits for Ghana.
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